ACHILLES

Running, Rehabilitation, and Education

42 West 38th Street, Fourth Floor, New York, NY 10018

(212) 354-0300 FAX: (212) 354-3978 

email: AchillesClub@aol.com    web: www.achillestrackclub.org

What Is Achilles?

The Achilles Track Club is a worldwide organization that encourages people with all kinds of disabilities to participate in running with the general public. Running is accessible to all, inexpensive, breaks down barriers between disabled and mainstream participants, and enhances health. People who had difficulty negotiating the distance between light poles often wind up doing marathons. We provide training, encouragement, and technical expertise to disabled runners.

Achilles includes people with all types of disabilities, such as visual impairment, stroke, cerebral palsy, paraplegia, arthritis, amputation, multiple sclerosis, cystic fibrosis, cancer, traumatic head injury, and organ transplant. Runners participate with crutches, in wheelchairs, on prostheses, and without aids.

Founded in 1983 in New York City, Achilles has expanded into forty-three chapters in the United States and over one hundred ten chapters in thirty-six countries - including Norway, Mongolia, Poland, Brazil, Bulgaria, Jamaica, Kenya, Japan, Thailand, Mexico, Taiwan, Greece, Tanzania, Canada, Algeria, Trinidad, Colombia, Lebanon, the Dominican Republic, Burma, Russia, Vietnam, and South Africa. Achilles has a youth program called Achilles Kids. In New York in association with the Office of Adaptive Physical Education of the NYC Board of Education and the Department of Parks and Recreation, two thousand six-hundred disadvantaged children with disabilities train at seventy-eight public schools. 

A new program for disabled seniors at senior citizen centers (Achilles 65) is operating. Other programs in conjunction with various organizations provide eye surgery for blind runners, below-the-knee prostheses, and sports wheelchairs for Achilles members.

Membership in Achilles is free and includes races, coaching, workouts, team T shirts, and our newsletter, THE ACHILLES HEEL. The Achilles Track Club is a nonprofit organization designated 501(c)(3).