Best Friends & Multiple Amputees To Compete In OKC Memorial Marathon

<p>A double and a triple amputee will be running in the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon this weekend. They met in Oklahoma during their recovery and running the memorial together is one the biggest highlights of their journey.</p>

Friday, April 22nd 2016, 5:09 pm

By: News 9


A double and a triple amputee will be running in the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon this weekend. They met in Oklahoma during their recovery and running the memorial together is one the biggest highlights of their journey.

People from all over the world will be running the streets of Oklahoma City this weekend, including two who thought they may never walk, let alone run again.

"Oklahoma has kind of become my second home, because it's really where a lot of my recovery process took off,” Cameron Clapp said.

There has been a lot healing since April 19, 1995 and also since Cameron's accident when he was just 15 years old that left him a triple amputee.           

"I can relate to what it's like to have hardship and to go through such a big loss,” he said.

Clapp and Seth Alexander have been visiting the Hanger Clinic in Oklahoma for years.

"I've had the privilege to work with a lot of injured service members and some of the Boston Marathon bombing survivors and their recovery process with prosthetics,” Clapp said.

So the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon seemed like the perfect next step in Alexander’s recovery. He and Clapp met a few years ago at the UCO Endeavor Games for athletes with physical disabilities, and this will be Alexander’s first half marathon.

"I look at him as an older brother, great mentor, best friend,” Alexander said. "One day I woke up and said, 'I'm going to run a mile.’”

And that mile is now turning into 13.1.

"The race is in two, and I couldn't be more excited and nervous at the same time,” Alexander said.

"I'm just hoping we cross the finish around the same, because he's going pretty fast,” Clapp said. “He's looking pretty good."

They are crossing lines many thought impossible to reach.

"Thirteen miles you guys don't have any knees, no legs,” Alexander said.

But a journey so many come together and run to remember.

"In my own life journey it's all about transcending adversity and tragedy,” Clapp said. “So that's the message that I'm really going to be looking at and feeling that here for the Oklahoma Memorial Marathon."

The run starts Sunday, April 24 at 6:30 a.m. 

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