By Jennifer Kirby
The stroke Terri Murphy had in October 2007 came as a shock. She was only 44, with no family history and, as far as she knew, no symptoms, although in retrospect the migraines she’d started getting as an adult and the distinctive fluttery, anxious feeling she occasionally noticed were warning signs, caused by a hole between the upper chambers of her heart that no one knew was there. The congenital condition, called patent foramen ovale, or PFO, is what led to the stroke.
The months after Murphy’s stroke were filled with weighing treatment options, dealing with insurance companies, seeking medical advice and opinions. In February 2008 she had surgery to implant an Amplatzer Septal Occluder device, which closed the hole in her heart. She returned for follow-up visits at the one- and three-year marks, and last February, at her five-year appointment, her doctor “did the full workup and said everything was working the way it should and I didn’t need to come back,” Murphy recalls. “I was like, ‘Are you sure?’”
It was news that called for celebration. Murphy’s good friend Jane Conway, who’d completed several triathlons and half-marathons, reminded Murphy of a comment she’d made last January. “I’d just mentioned, ‘What about that Ramblin’ Rose? I need something to get my butt out there. I need to take care of me,’” Murphy recalls. “So she was like, ‘Let’s sign up for that Ramblin’ Rose.’ I thought I could never do that.”
Despite Murphy’s doubts, she and Conway signed up for the Huntersville Ramblin’ Rose last September, along with another friend, who in the end had to miss the race to be in Texas with her ailing mother.
As far back as she can remember, exercise and sports have been part of Murphy’s life. Her father was a high school football coach; she attended the University of Michigan on a full gymnastics scholarship; her three children are athletes. “I do like to stay in shape,” she says. “Tennis shoes are my friend.”
Murphy had run her first 5k, the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, in 2004, in honor of her mother-in-law, who had been diagnosed with breast cancer. And although that hadn’t converted her to a hardcore runner (“I can’t put ‘I run’ on the back of my car,” she jokes), it had a certain appeal. “All you need is a pair of tennis shoes and a jogging bra,” she says. “It’s almost like my place for peace, to be out there with just your thoughts and, for me, with my God.”
After committing to the Ramblin’ Rose, Murphy found a perfect running partner in her 8-month-old dog, Cody, “which was great because he needed to be out and I was like, ‘OK, if I don’t take you I’m gonna pay for it.’ He had all this energy.” They fell into a routine: an early morning mile run, shower, work, and then Murphy would try to run some more in the evening. Weekends were for longer runs.
Like many first-time Ramblin’ Rose participants, Murphy didn’t own a bike. She raced the Ramblin’ Rose on a bike Conway borrowed for her. But on race day, she was most nervous about the swimming portion. “I don’t really love swimming, and it’s hard – it’s a full aerobic sport,” she says. As feared, she got off to a rough start. “I breathed in, like, half the pool. I just started doing breaststroke,” she says. “And I just was so out of sorts I ended up doing breaststroke the whole time. Probably four or five laps into it I didn’t know if I could do it. My hamstring was cramping up … My goal was just to finish but my competitiveness came up and I hadn’t trained to try that hard.”
Spectators and even fellow competitors shouted encouragement and kept her going. “Truly, everybody out there really helped me finish,” she says.
“It was kind of a poignant thing; it all came together the way it should,” adds Murphy, who finished in 1:12. “I was definitely on a high afterwards, just finishing it, and I was like, ‘That was really fun.’ I was smiling the whole time I was doing it.”
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Jennifer Kirby is a writer and editor who lives, works, and runs in Aberdeen, N.C. Contact her at jennkirby@alumni.unc.edu or www.jenniferdarekirby.com.
