Going the distance

Chris Kohler is an athlete. Just be careful about calling him an inspiration.

Kohler’s athletic credentials are obvious. The 6-foot, 1-inch 185-pounder has raced in more than a dozen marathons and endurance events in the United States and abroad. He’s a top 20 finisher; when training, as he is now for the upcoming Los Angeles Marathon, he routinely logs dozens of hours in the gym, the swimming pool and on the road.

Those achievements are remarkable for anyone. But even more so for the 33-year-old Kohler, who is paralyzed.

“I don’t like to be looked at condescendingly,” said the Lake Elsinore resident, who has no movement below his mid-chest area. “I push my abilities, whatever they are, all the time.” When people call him an inspiration, he says, “it’s usually tied to the disability, and then I get stereotyped instead of being seen for my [athletic] accomplishments.”

Kohler and about 75 other wheelchair marathoners across the country are carrying the torch passed to them by Bob Hall, who in 1976 became the first wheelchair user to officially complete the 26-mile race. Back then, it took Hall more than three hours. Today, Kohler’s best marathon time is just under 1 hour and 50 minutes, about 20 minutes faster than the top runners. And although Kohler’s considered a skilled competitor, he’s not among the sport’s elite, who have clocked times under 90 minutes.

The sport of wheelchair marathon racing has undergone significant changes in equipment, training techniques and racing philosophies during the last few decades, enabling athletes like Kohler to smash old records -- and stereotypes.

“Not too long ago, people thought if a guy pushed a chair 26 miles, he’d die,” said Bob Molinatti, a two-time winner of the Los Angeles Marathon wheelchair event and a television commentator for the race. “Now, I don’t think people are really that surprised about it. We’ve fought a lot of personal battles, overcome a lot, before we ever get to the starting line.”

For Kohler, the personal battle began when he was 18, during a camping trip in the Mojave Desert. Although the weekend outings usually meant motorcycle racing with friends, occasionally guns were present. On this trip, someone accidentally fired a rifle. The shot severed Kohler’s spinal cord, resulting in his partial paralysis.

The nature of his injury bears on his marathon performances today. Although he possesses full hand function, Kohler’s abdominal and lower back muscles are powerless. In wheelchair racing, the implications are significant. Polio victims and amputees who compete against athletes like Kohler usually have full use of their abdominal and back muscles, thus providing a big advantage in racing.

“Athletes with spinal cord injuries like Chris are really being pushed out of the top ranks of the sport,” said Molinatti, 44, who was paralyzed as a result of a car accident at age 19. “The others just have too much upper body strength.”

For years after the shooting, Kohler, once an avid skateboarder, surfer and skier, was almost completely physically inactive. “It took years of learning to cope with a new lifestyle,” he said. “It was difficult at first, even going out in public. People would stare and wonder what happened to me. I faced all kinds of challenges -- sex, taking a shower even. It was tough. It still is.”

One day at the beach in 1992 changed that. Kohler was on the bike path near Santa Monica when he saw a wheelchair racer whiz by. He immediately recognized that this sport offered him a way to restore a physical vigor in his life that had been missing for almost four years.

“I thought it looked really cool,” said Kohler, a gregarious man who works for a health care company that specializes in products for the disabled.

Top-quality racing wheelchairs can cost as much as $4,000. After years of experimenting with designs and materials, Kohler purchased a custom-made chair with carbon-fiber wheels for about $3,500. Gloves, costing about $75 a pair, contain thick padding for the thumb, index and middle fingers. That’s because racers’ hands must “punch the wheel” -- as racer’s say -- hundreds of times in a marathon.

Training presents its own set of challenges. Because there are no courses dedicated to wheelchair racing, competitors like Kohler must improvise. His two favorite spots are the roughly 3-mile loop around the Rose Bowl in Pasadena and the bike path at Venice Beach. Both are well maintained -- that is, no potholes -- with gradual slopes and scenic beauty. Usually, he’ll cover between 30 and 50 miles per week, two or three times a week, depending on how he feels.

But the heart of his training occurs indoors. He has a special treadmill outfitted with rollers for his chair’s back wheels that allows him to watch television or read as he works out. He puts in about five hours on the treadmill each week, at a speed of 12 to 14 mph. The device helps him maintain a steady efficient technique and prepares his body for long stays in the chair.

He also does weight training about three days a week, usually bench presses and lat pulls, to develop endurance and upper body strength. And twice a week Kohler swims laps in an Olympic-sized pool for about an hour.

“When I first started out, I definitely overtrained,” said Kohler, who stops training altogether about four days before a marathon. “But I learned the body has to rest.”

A marathon can take a harsh toll on a racer’s body. It starts with simply climbing inside the chair. In order to maintain an aerodynamic position, a racer’s stomach is as close to his legs as he can get it. “It takes an acrobat just to get in one of these things,” Kohler said during a recent outing.

During competition, as a racer spends 90 minutes or more hunched over, the strain on the back can be severe. A racer’s hands, wrists and shoulder joints get punished as well. Rotator cuff injuries and tennis elbow are common.

The race contains its own risks. As racing strategies have become more sophisticated, competitors are increasingly likely to collide with one another.

Drafting -- the strategy also used in auto racing, when one competitor gets directly behind another to cut down on wind resistance -- often leads to collisions.

Another aggressive strategy that can lead to collisions and injuries is blocking, in which one racer deliberately impedes another’s path in order to allow another competitor to pass.

But the wheelchair athletes endure such risks, as they do most things.

As Molinatti, a former runner and later a wheelchair racer, has observed: “Wheelchair racers aren’t nice and polite, like able-bodied runners tend to be. They’re very aggressive and combative.

“They’ve had to fight for everything in their life, and the race is the same way.”

Kohler’s real battle begins in the late stages of the marathon.

“It’s usually around mile 22 that I wonder what am I doing out here. My back is killing me, my hands hurt. I’m tired and I don’t know where I am really,” he said.

“But that’s when I just put my head down and keep going.”