I just heard about this story from my friend Wendy who operates a fitness bootcamp in Doylestown, PA. Ironically this happend locally in Virginia Beach. This the article posted on Pilotonline.com by Lee Tolliver:

VIRGINIA BEACH | Hillary Dietz crossed the finish line at Sunday's 38th Shamrock Marathon, raised her hands toward the sky and screamed for all she was worth.

"Take that, you stroke," she yelled.

She had refused to let a recent stroke beat her.

Dietz, who has been running marathons since 1991, suffered a massive stroke last October that left her completely paralyzed on her right side.

That she was even able to run in such a short time is a testament to her inner strength.

"I was getting ready to leave for the Chicago Marathon when it happened," said Dietz, 40, a Pittsburgh native living in Doylestown, Pa. "There's no history of strokes in my family. After all of the tests, they pretty much came to the conclusion that they had no idea what happened.

"But they seemed pretty sure that my fitness level from running probably prevented me from being paralyzed permanently."

Dietz still had to face the grueling task of relearning many of the normal day-to-day things that people take for granted. She still has a strange feeling on much of her right side - some numbness - and has to fight off bouts of depression.

"The paralysis went away pretty quickly, but I couldn't talk or do lots of things," she said. "But I wasn't going to let it get the best of me."

Befuddled doctors told the former high school and Division III field hockey player to start walking as much as she could as soon as she could. They told her to try to get back to what likely saved her from a much different life than what she was used to - running.

"It was so hard," said Dietz, who had run 18 marathons prior to coming to Virginia Beach for her first Shamrock. "It amazed me how much of my stamina it took from me."

Running has brought back much of her lungs. On Sunday, she ran her first marathon since the stroke, finishing in 3:51:08 to take eighth place in the women's 40-44 age division and 468th overall.

She said Sunday's experience was kind of like finishing her first marathon - where she cried and immediately asked when she could do another one.

After the stroke, and especially after the Shamrock, she said she's not taking anything else in life for granted.

"I'm really happy with how I did," said Dietz, who said she will return to Pittsburgh for the first time since her stroke to compete in a May 2 marathon.

"This is a very big victory for me considering all of the hell I've been through."

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