Icons Of The Week: Kaytlynn and Heather Welsch
This past weekend, I read “How Do You Raise a Prodigy?” , an article in the New York Times magazine. It made a somewhat oblique—and rightfully so—argument that prodigy is just as much of a handicap as it is a blessing. Did I just use the word oblique correctly? Anyway, you can read the article yourself, so that I don’t have to summarize it, but it got me thinking a little bit about the role a parent has in “creating” a prodigy.
I personally don’t know any prodigies except for my brother Stuprendan, who is brilliant enough to affect the behaviors of a mathematical prodigy, without being one. For instance, when he was in fourth grade, he convinced my mother that he needed to take calculus lessons from a tutor because math was too easy for him. She hired a high school student taking AP Calculus to work with him. Then, she went in for a student teacher conference, where she learned that Stuprendan still hadn’t fully grasped long division. Stuprendan’s genius, it turns out, is more social—he knew, when he was eight years old, the things to say to make other people believe he was something he was not. That type of brilliance, in the long run, will benefit him far more than a 9-year-old making his way through a college curriculum at Stanford.
If my mother, though, had taken the bait, and allowed him to continue on with his quest to shape himself into a mathematical genius, it would have been mostly for her own ego. She could have convinced herself that one of her offspring was truly extraordinary, and done everything in her power to push him to manifest his talents. Making him work on mathematical problems all weekend. Hire more tutors. Stuprendan is smart enough that if he worked his ass off, he could probably have at least graduated from high school early.
The difference between him and a real math prodigy, of course, is that the former doesn’t have to work hard at all. Whatever specific talent they have comes to them naturally. On the other hand, while a mathematical prodigy may be myopic to the rest of the world, Stuprendan is brilliant in myriad ways, many of which won’t fully become apparent until he is an adult.
I thought about prodigies again when I read “Too Fast, Too Soon? Young Endurance Runners Draw Cheers and Concern,” an article about Kaytlynn and Heather Welsch, two pre-teen sisters from Alvin, Texas who in the last two years, have run a combination of 160 endurance races around the country. I’m talking fucking marathons here.
At a young age, they displayed a certain aptitude for running long distance races when their father, Rodney, an analytical chemist without any extraordinary abilities, started entering them into triathalons for children.
At the time, Kaytlynn, the eldest, was 8, and Heather was 6. Today, they are 12 and 10, respectively.
After the first few triathalons, it became clear that Kaytlynn, at least, had a real natural aptitude. “Why did you have to make my ordinary name impossible to spell,” she asked her parents. “And also may I run in more races?”
So Rodney started entering his daughters in road races—1K, 3K, 5K—where they beat all of the other girls their age (there were none), and most of the women in their 20s and 30s.
That’s when Rodney, it seems, started getting a little bananas. He decided that the girls were supernatural running machines, and began training them for longer races. He cut off the television in their house (classic sign of a dysfunctional family), and demanded that they get 93 grade point averages to continue to compete.
“Kaytlynn said she wanted to quit the triathlon, and I said, ‘You’re not quitting, you need to stay with it,’ ” Rodney recalled. “Two months later, after she gets a new bike, she says, ‘I love the triathlon now.’ ”
Because the girls spend some many of their weekends traveling to races, they don’t really have time to spend with their friends.
“Kids at school tell me: ‘Man, Kaytlynn, you’re no fun. You never come over on the weekend; you can’t spend the night.’ And I say, ‘I have races on the weekend, so of course I can’t spend the night.’ I don’t have that many friends at school because of that reason.”
All of Rodney’s hopes and dreams for his running prodigies—which they were, according to the definition in the aforementioned New York Times article, which states that prodigies “ function at an advanced adult level in some domain before age 12”—came true at the Xterra 13-mile off-road race in Waco, Texas, in August. Only 4 feet 5 inches tall, Kaytlynn came in first place, beating out all women in the race. All but 10 men in the race lost to her winning time of 1:39:31 (that’s roughly 7.5 minute miles, which actually isn’t that fast). Her sister Heather, 10-years-old, came in third in the women’s category.
Now, this wasn’t even a traditional road race. This was an off the road, puddle ridden shitshow with one section that had steps so large that Kaytlynn had to crawl up them on her hands and knees, like a scampering wood nymph, or a pretty Golem.
If onlookers weren’t worried before, they certainly got worried after the race. Pediatricians came up to Rodney and admonished him. He told them—probably in nicer words—to fuck off. “My little girls will rule the world!!!” he screamed.
Then, in late September, he took them to run the Xterra championship marathon in Salt Lake City, Texas. It was their second airplane flight. Heather, who frequently sobs while she’s running, brought her lucky stuffed animals.
The race did not start well. Kaytlynn, on a training run, stubbed her big toe, which became swollen and painful. She began her sprint painfully limping alongside full grown adults over a foot taller. “‘She’s not hurt,’ [Rodney] told Niki (the mother) over the phone. ‘It’s not a knee or an ankle. She just has pain, and she’ll deal with pain.’”
While watching Kaytlynn struggle her way through the first mile, Rodney had lost sight of Heather. She had been stepped on at the starting line, and had fallen on the pavement. She emerged from a cove of trees a few minutes later, bleeding on her arm and leg, and begging for stitches.
“The day, once so promising, now seemed cursed by some double whammy of pratfalls. Rodney shook his head. He had hoped Kaytlynn’s willpower would triumph over a bad toe. But even if it didn’t, he thought she might run a great race anyway just to stay ahead of her sister.
He sighed, “There goes my Plan B.”
(The New York Times article is a great read, btw, and that’s where I’m getting all these quotes. From it, I also stole most of these images, taken by Michael Stravato.)
Kaytlynn, who had expected to be the winner, finished the race in 2:08:29, which is slower than I ran a half marathon (I think), but appropriate for a child. She placed 30th among 75 female runners—an impressive feat, but by no means prodigious.
When she emerged at the finish line, she was immediately taken into the custody of child protective services, who gave her to a couple that promised not to make her run anymore long distance races.
I kid, of course. Rodney kept them. He needled them the whole way home for not winning. He gave them complexes that years of therapy later in life will never fully heal.
“For some reason, running is really fun, even though it hurts sometimes,” Kaytlynn said to a reporter for the Times. “I enjoy it. I can go on and on without getting tired. It makes a purpose in my life.
For being really good runners, especially for your age.
For hopefully not doing long term damage to your body.
For the 100 acres of farm land your father reputedly owns, where maybe you can, at least, find some peace.
For you, Kaytlynn and Heather Welsch. For things getting better, for parents losing their control (it happens, eventually), for fulfilling your dreams your own way, on your own schedule.
For friends and sleepover and a normal childhood. I didn’t have one either, and turned out…kind of a little wacky. No mind.
Kaytlynn and Heather, you’re my icons of the week.
