Kayla Montgomery

Kayla Montgomery, a resident of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, is an award-winning long distance runner. Since her diagnosis of Multiple sclerosis (MS) when she was 14, she has devoted herself to running, competing and setting new records.

Early life and diagnosis

From a young age, Kayla Montgomery has been involved in sports. In 2009, she suffered an injury while playing soccer, and shortly thereafter experienced a loss of feeling in both of her feet. When she also noticed feelings of shockwaves and tingling in her spine, she was sent for medical tests. After the doctors discovered lesions on her spine and in her brain, they diagnosed her with a very aggressive form of MS, which is a disease that involves the central nervous system. For a period of eight months, her legs had a bluish color and felt cold. She had no feeling from her waist down. After time and medication helped she began to slowly regain sensation in her legs.

Long distance running

Up until the soccer injury, Montgomery was one of the slowest runners on her team. In April 2010, when the feeling returned to her legs, she left soccer and took up running. With great motivation she began to train six days a week and run distances of 40 miles each week. Not wanting to use her diagnosis of MS as an excuse to hold herself back, she told her running coach, Patrick Cromwell, "I want to run fast." She has been running on indoor track, outdoor track and cross-country teams since that time.

As she began competing in matches, she realized that AbOUT one mile into the race her legs began to go numb. As she continued to run, she felt no pain, but when she reached the end line, her legs gave out from under her and she fell to the ground. She now knows that she will collapse when she hits the finish line, so either her coach or a team of people stand in wait to catch her and ease her to the ground without falling. Afterwards, her team ices down her legs until she can feel them once again.

Awards

Montgomery has continually improved her speeds and broken her own records. She hopes to break the Mount Tabor school record of 17:36 for a 5k run, which was set back in 2001. She accomplished her personal best of 17:42 during the Wendy's Invitational. Her time was the 12th fastest that had been recorded on the track for females from North Carolina. She won the Class 4A NCHSAA girls individual station championships in Kernersville in 2013. She is ranked 21st in the county following her North Carolina State titles where she won the 3,200-meter race in 10:43 minutes. In March 2014 she competed in the 5,000-meter national indoor track competitions in New York.