Brooks Rehabilitation Challenge Mile at Gate River Run 2022

The Brooks Challenge Mile is a one mile event at the Gate River Run Team Gate that enables and empowers individuals living with a disability. People of all ages and abilities wheel, walk, jog or run in this powerful community event. Thank you to everyone that participated or volunteered!

Video Transcript

Bob Kuhn, Brooks Patient

The Brooks Challenge Mile is just amazing.

Uh, the last time I did it, I was in a power chair with a head array. I needed someone to help me even with the chair. Today, I walked the entire mile.

It’s just an amazing thing to come from where I was totally paralyzed, couldn’t move at all.

And the Brooks therapists got me to this point where I was walking a mile on my own. It’s amazing. It’s a great feeling.

Blayne Yerby, Brooks Patient

So, I volunteered with the Brooks Challenge Mile over– for over five years.

As I was registering for the Challenge Mile, I recognized I was a patient. And it really took me back for a second to think this is a challenge for me, looking at where I’ve been, where I’ve come from You know, I wasn’t able to move my legs. Then, I went from wheelchair to walker to cane and now I was able to complete the Challenge Mile with no assistance.

And it really was just a surreal moment to see from volunteering to being a patient and completing it.

Michael Sellars, Brooks Patient, 10th Challenge Mile

Any time you go out and do a group event where everyone else is there cheering you on it’s a guaranteed good time.

Joe Sellars, Michael’s Dad

I guess probably 2015, 2016, Michael got to where once he would finish his own mile, he would go back out on the course and find friends and and people to kinda coach up on the way and encourage them to finish theirs.

And to me, that’s part of what the Challenge Mile is all about. It’s that everybody’s out here. Everybody is pulling for each other.

And, uh, to me, it’s like a great big family reunion. Especially, this year since we missed 2021.