BENTONVILLE - Just getting to the finish line was triumph enough.
On Labor Day 2011, Jo Rampy fulfilled a lifelong goal by completing a triathlon. It occurred nearly a decade after she had been diagnosed with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis, but at the time, she was feeling good enough to swim, bike and run to the finish line.
When she crossed it, she was unexpectedly presented with a check for $1,200, given to her by her husband, Scott, and their friends.
“The summer months are tough on me because of theheat, so I really try to stay out of the outside and recluse,” Jo Rampy says. “That’s why I did my first triathlon at 5:30 a.m., because I didn’t want to be out in the sun. We called it ‘Tri to Encourage.’”
The next year, the first TriFest for MS was held. The TriFest is growing into a fourday event this year and will be held Aug. 29-31 and Sept. 1 in Bentonville.
All proceeds from the event benefit the Rampy MS Research Foundation, which focuses primarily on multiple sclerosis research. The foundation is a partner with the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences MS research program, which is in Little Rock.
“It doesn’t go to their general fund; it goes to Dr. [Paul] Drew and Dr. [Patti] Wight, who are leading researchers on MS,” Scott Rampy says. “It’s kind of a different model for philanthropy.”
Jo Rampy played college volleyball at the University of Northern Iowa, and she and her husband were always physically active in the years that followed. In 2002, though, she fell ill after returning from a mission trip with her daughter.
The trip had seen them work in un-air-conditioned homes in the sweltering St. Louis summer heat, followed by a train ride home in which the air conditioning brokedown. Upon her return, Jo was unable to walk for a week.
“It started out with numbness on my left side,” she says. “The doctor thought maybe it was lupus, with the symptoms I was having, but the MRI said MS. … A spinal tap - which is real fun - confirmed it.”
Rampy’s multiple sclerosis goes in and out of remission. When her symptoms come back, she struggles with walking and her gait, and suffers from heavy fatigue. She describes it as feeling “like you’re wearing a suit of armor” at all times.
Everyone responds differently to different treatments. What has helped Rampy is a 20-day on, five-day off session in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, and a paleo diet, in which she sticks to grass-fed meat and free-range chicken.
She visits a chiropractor often, does electrical stimulus once a year, and exercises whenever her body will let her.
“In those times of good health, I’ve got to make the most of it,” she says. “That’s why I wanted to do the triathlon.”
The Rampys long donated to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, but decided to create their own foundation in order to focus exclusively on research. Last year’s TriFest raised $30,000.
The 2013 TriFest starts Aug. 29 with a Crayola Chalk Walk, in which people write encouraging messages along the race route. On Aug. 30, there’s a super sprint triathlon, for kids ages 5-8.
The morning of Aug. 31 includes a sprint triathlon for adults ages 15 and up (500-meter swim, 15-kilometer bike race and 5-kilometer run), and that night there’s a shorter super sprint triathlon for those ages 9 and up. The adult Olympic triathlon is on the morning of Sept. 1.
There is a special category, the Trifesta, for those who do three events in two days. Last year, 10 people did it, and double that number have signed upto go for it this year.
“We have a distance for everybody, from beginner all the way to pro that will race for prize money on Sunday,” Scott Rampy says. “When we decided what to put together, a very low percentage of Arkansas kids participate in triathlons, so we thought it made sense to add something for kids on Friday night, to focus on the little guys.”
Support for the TriFest has been so strong that the Rampys are looking to expand it to other parts of the country. They have been in talks with The Johns Hopkins Hospital about starting a TriFest in Baltimore in 2014.
“The idea is to seed a TriFest somewhere in the country every year that will feed their research hospital for MS,” Scott Rampy says. “Most of the leading [MS researchers] are tied together. … It’s a small community, even though they’re spread around the country.”For more information about the TriFest for MS, call (479) 685-7063 or visit researchms.
org.
Northwest Profile, Pages 31 on 08/18/2013