For a 15-year-old to complete a 10-mile race is an fairly impressive feat. For Matthew Taylor to pull off that achievement is another matter entirely.
As reported by Minneapolis CBS affiliate WCCO, Taylor completed Sunday's 10-mile race, part of the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon slate of events, in 1:44:19. He did that despite running with cerebral palsy, a condition which has plagued him since he was born.
Considering the fact that doctors told Taylor's parents that their son wouldn't ever walk when he was born, running a 10-mile race is more than a little bit of a surprise. It's a source of sheer astonishment.
"Just how far he's come," Taylor's mother, Kim Salkin-Taylor, told WCCO. "From losing the ability to walk, to regaining that, to starting running, to training, and he's doing half-marathons."
The need to re-learn how to walk was brought on by a gradual deterioration in Taylor's condition as he grew older and his muscles grew tighter, constricting his ability to move normally, making all his motor skills more spastic and, eventually, leading the teen and his parents to search for some kind of a solution.
That solution arrived in the form of an internal medical-pump which Taylor had implanted at age 13. The device provides a solution which reportedly keeps Taylor's muscles from contracting into spasms.
Those improvements, in turn, led Matthew to start looking for more athletic enedeavors to attempt. He began running and shortly thereafter completed his first 5K race. Inspired by his sudden ability to jog healthily, Taylor joined his school's track and cross country teams.
His ability to rise above his own muscular hardship began to gain attention from others, too, none more prominently than Jets quarterback Tim Tebow, who invited the teen to join him at a practice.
Then came Sunday, when he successfully completed his longest race to date … though that mark may not stand for long. Though he's still just 15, the teen claims that he absolutely intends to eventually run a full marathon.
"I can't be any more proud of how far he's come," Kim Salkin-Taylor told WCCO.
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