Giant steps
Marathon the latest goal in a life of challenges.
Katie Lynch, 26, practicing for Monday’s Boston Marathon with a special Walker. (Globe Staff Photo / JohnTlumacki)
By John Vellante, Globe Staff, 4/14/01
WAYLAND
Her life -- all 26-plus years of it -- has been one challenge after another.
But Katherine Gabriele Lynch, or, as she prefers, Katie, has handled them all and conquered most with grit, courage, and grace.
Another one awaits her in Hopkinton Monday when she toes the Boston Marathon starting line and attempts to walk 26.2 feet -- a piece of cake for most but a monumental effort for a woman weighing 35 pounds and measuring 28 inches.
Katie Lynch was the first of three children born to Chris and Joan Lynch and, as her mother laughingly exclaims, "she was some opening act."
And that act has played to rave reviews.
Despite a unique form of dwarfism, as yet unnamed, and floppy connective tissue that has led to numerous medical problems and countless life-threatening surgeries, Katie has accepted the hand dealt her and faces each day undaunted and with a smile.
Perhaps that is why one of her favorite expressions is "Parva Sed Potens." It is Latin for "Small but powerful."
28-inch-tall woman completes her own modified marathon. By Greg Sukiennik, Associated Press, 04/16/01.
HOPKINTON - Katie Lynch spends most of her time in a wheelchair or on a walker. On Monday, tears trickled down her face and the crowd erupted in cheers as she crossed the finish line of her own Boston Marathon -- 26.2 feet from the start.
"I was nervous like any other marathoner, but it was a good nervous energy," she said.
"I don’t think it could have been more satisfying."
Lynch, 26, weighs 35 pounds and stands 28 inches tall.
She has a unique, unidentified form of dwarfism and suffers from circulatory problems and back pain.
Yet on Monday, she dressed as any marathoner would -- with a cap, sneakers and racer number 2001 pinned on her shirt -- and took her mark at the starting line before the rest of the race got started.
Leaning on a tiny walker with wheels, and supported on either side by her two brothers, she walked the first 26.2 feet of the Boston Marathon route. The starting line is in Hopkinton, 26.2 miles from downtown Boston.
"It was the most amazing thing," she said. Lynch had been training for her marathon by walking 100 feet, in
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