An Ocean County man is Boston Marathon's handcycling champion.

Sam Spencer at the Boston Marathon
Sam Spencer at the Boston Marathon (Christine Spencer)
loading...

Sam Spencer, age 53, of Brick Township won this year's 26.2 mile race in 1 hour, 18 minutes and 34 seconds, his wife Christine Spencer told WOBM.

However, she's not surprised by the victory. She said Sam had been training really hard for the last three months and had even come in third place during last year's Boston Marathon handcycling category.

"He trained harder this year. He's been busy juicing (mixture of beet and kale juice) and he has a computer program. He's been training really hard," Christine said.

Sam is paralyzed from the waist down, injured as a ski racer 22 year's ago. Christine said he picked up handcycling many years ago and then began competing on the monoski. She said he just recently picked up handcycling back up in earnest during the last couple of years.

Christine said Sam races as part of Achilles International, a group who's core mission  is to get individuals with disabilities to compete in mainstream athletics. He also works with the D.A.T.E. Team (Disabilities Awareness Through Education) run through the Ocean County Department of Human Services, for eleven years showing 6th graders in Ocean County all the things that the disabled can accomplish.

Sam raced this year to show his support for the city of Boston, Christine said. "He's a huge Red Sox fan, he loves the Patriots and his family is originally from the Boston area." So last year he had pledged to do all the world's major marathon's and do them one time but after what happened this year he decided he had to go back," she said. "He just didn't want to remember it that way."

 

More From Beach Radio