The featured speaker at the Tuesday evening, Nov. 17, meeting of the Greater Long Island Running Club will be Sarah Reinertsen, Amputee Champion Athlete, Ironman Triathlete and spokeswoman for the Challenged Athletes Foundation.
The meeting will be held in the Auditorium of the Plainview-Old Bethpage Public Library, 999 Old Country Road in Plainview, starting promptly at 8 p.m. Admission is free, and the general public is cordially invited to attend.
Sarah was the first amputee woman to complete the Kona Hawaii Ironman Triathlon World Championship, and was the youngest member of the 1992 U.S. Paralympic Team in Barcelona in 1992. A veteran of the New York, Boston, London, Los Angeles and New Zealand Marathons, she holds the world record in the half marathon and the marathon for above-knee amputee women. ESPN presented her with its 2006 ESPY Award as the Disabled Athlete of the Year.
Sarah will be addressing the audience on Nov. 17 about her athletic accomplishments and her new book In a Single Bound…Losing my Leg, Finding myself, and Training for Life.
When she’s not training for athletic pursuits, Sarah works as a motivational speaker for corporate events, schools, universities and special programs around the U.S. Sarah is a NIKE sponsored athlete and a spokesperson for CAF Challenged Athletes Foundation who raises funds and gives scholarships to those disabled who want to pursue their athlete dreams. She also serves as spokesperson for Ossur Prosthetics, a California company that manufactures the technology that has allowed her to pursue her athletic endeavors and has a motto that mirrors her own (Live Without Limitations).
As a national spokesperson for the Challenged Athletes Foundation, Sarah’s role is to inspire and provide guidance to others with physical challenges and instill in them that when you believe, you can do anything. She gives sports clinics to people with disabilities to teach them about the sport of triathlon, and has given several clinics to the injured U.S. soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan at Brook Army Medical, Walter Reed Hospital and Balboa Hospital.
“This dynamic and motivational young woman will probably be the single best speaker that our Club has ever had the opportunity to feature at one of our meetings,” observed Club President Mike Polansky. “We welcome the general public to join us on Nov. 17, so that Sarah can share her story with them.”
