Runner Overcomes Rocky Road

Watching Ignacio “Nacho” Pineda talk about running is like watching him run.

The 17-year-old holds his head up as he talks. Determination spreads across his face. His arms pump in even strokes.

“Step by step, every day, keep pushing yourself until you get it,” he said, his arms pumping the air as he sat outside his home in Sunland. “That’s how I got it.”

On Sunday, Ignacio, who has been in foster care since he was in the fifth grade, will compete in the Los Angeles Marathon. On the course and off, he is learning to push himself, beyond his past, beyond its limitations.

Running is Ignacio’s passion--the reason he has medals to hand to friends who need encouragement, and memories of victory to keep for himself.

But before the medals and the victories, there were the memories he would rather forget.

“Passion can drive away a lot of demons if it’s channeled properly,” said Andrew Henderson of Families for Children Inc., a Culver City based foster care agency operated by Henderson and his wife, Terilyn. “We want our young people to find their passion. We want to be in a position to encourage that search, to nurture that search, to create an environment where that can happen.”

Ignacio came to the U.S. from Mexico with his mother and three siblings when he was 5. Often, they had no food, and children at school teased Ignacio and his brother because of their clothes. The boys ended up missing many days of school and the situation at home took its toll, too.

After Ignacio was placed in foster care, he moved often from home to home. Each time he moved there were new rules, new opportunities to get in trouble for forgetting them, new schools.

“I went to so many elementary schools I can’t even remember,” he said, shaking his head. “So many.

“I remember graduating from elementary school. Nobody was there. I remember walking around looking for [my foster parents]. I said, [forget] them people.”

Figuring that his life was “all messed up,” he flirted with trouble, sometimes hanging out with the wrong people in the wrong places. His one goal was “to be down,” like his older brother, a gang member.

By the time he was placed in one of Henderson’s group homes, Ignacio was shy and withdrawn. But he was also very independent and, at times, defiant, Henderson said.

For three years, longer than he had stayed in any other place, Ignacio lived in the home on Wilton Avenue with five other boys. In that home, if he arrived late from school, there was still a warm meal waiting for him. In that home people talked to him and staff members took an interest in him. And he began to take an interest in his future.

“He had to grow and we gave him the room,” Henderson said. “As much as everybody likes to see quick fixes, among our youth we found the only real magic bullet is time. It takes time for kids to work through their issues.”

During outings to the park, other boys played basketball or baseball. Ignacio couldn’t play, so he ran. A staff member noticed his skills, signed him up for a track team at Centinela Park and made him believe he could run with the best.

“He was like, ‘Nacho, you’ll be a superstar, nobody can beat you,’ ” Ignacio said with a smile.

“They really cared about you,” he said of staff members. “The other people just cared about the money. They didn’t care about me.”

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Ignacio said Henderson would go to the schools and check up on him.

“When I graduated from junior high school, he was there,” Ignacio said. “I knew he cared. He used to talk to me. Other people weren’t talking to you. They give you rules.”

To build up the endurance and skills needed to complete the 26.2-mile course, Ignacio has spent hours on the track, running and refusing to let himself stop. The first time he ran a timed mile two years ago, it took him 18 minutes and left him discouraged. Last year he ran the Los Angeles and New York marathons.

Nearing the finish line in New York, Ignacio’s muscles had grown tired. It was cold and raining, but as he got closer he heard the shouts of onlookers encouraging him.

“It was hurting,” he recalled. “I told myself to keep pushing. When I finished I couldn’t believe it. I wanted to run some more.”

His time: 3:24:45.

Karen Kungie, a coach with Students Run L.A., an organization that trains hundreds of young people to run the marathon, said Ignacio’s skills are outstanding, although his build is atypical for a long-distance runner.

“Most long-distance runners are tall and skinny and he’s not that way at all,” said Kungie, who also teaches at San Fernando High School. “He has a strong but petite physique. . . . I think a lot of it is just his internal motivation to focus on one thing and do it well.”

On Sunday his goal will be to finish the race in less than three hours. Beyond that, he wants to compete in the 2004 Olympics, a feat Kungie said is possible.

“He’s already finishing in the top elite categories, and when he does finish he says, ‘I’m not tired.’ ”

Since January, Ignacio has lived with a family in Sunland and attends Verdugo High School, where he runs on the track team. The home was perfect for Ignacio. His foster father is also a marathon runner, Henderson said, and on the weekends the two go for long runs together.

“He’s really humble and modest,” even with all the attention that has come his way because of his athletic abilities, said Deidre Simien, Ignacio’s foster mother.

“To see a kid like Nacho and help him find his way is really fulfilling,” she said.

Through a campaign centered around the marathon dubbed “Create a Champion,” the Families for Children is raising money to fund a scholarship and a program to prepare foster children for life after they leave the system.

“The greatest gift we can give to these children is the confidence to be self-sufficient,” Henderson said.

When Ignacio runs on Sunday, he will be helping to push others to know the joy of achievement--the way he does each time he gives away his track medals to friends.

“I feel like somebody else should be happy, too,” he said. “Not just me.”