With Self-belief And Grit, Michelle Wheeler Balances Her Life’s Passions

Michelle Wheeler has always had an unbreakable will.

“I guess I have this knack for thinking, ‘I’m going to prove you wrong; I can do this,’” she said. “I even prove myself wrong sometimes. I just know that where there is a will, there is a way.”

Her life is an intricate balancing act of combining a busy racing schedule — in November alone, she placed fourth among Americans in the women’s wheelchair division at the New York City Marathon, then won the Philadelphia Marathon a few weeks later — with a full-time career as a clinical rehabilitation and mental health counselor. And all that is on top of her most important role: being a single parent to 14-year-old Eva, a freshman in high school. 

“I feel like there’s always a stereotype of ‘once you have kids, your life is set,’ or that a person with a disability can’t do things,” Wheeler, 37, said. “I was told I couldn’t raise my child alone, things like that. And (the balancing act) isn’t always easy, of course, but I knew I could do it. It can be rough, but I love it all so much.”

Toughing things out is Wheeler’s specialty. She suffered a spinal cord injury as an infant and was placed in foster care before being adopted at age 9 by Joan and Bill Wheeler, one of five disabled children the couple welcomed into their family.

Her parents introduced their kids to adaptive sports, and Michelle excelled at all she tried. But as she grew to adulthood, she wanted a different kind of life.

“I was trying to run away from myself a little bit, just trying to figure out who I was,” she said. “I think I tried to run away from disability.”

In 2012 or so, she and a then 3-year-old Eva were visiting her parents, who were going out for a bike ride. She borrowed her sister’s racing chair, taking Eva along for the ride, and fell in love with racing all over again.

“I felt good being back out there,” Wheeler said.

She began competing at local events, eventually drawing the attention of a Penn State representative, who asked if she would consider serious training. In her mid-20s, with a full-time job and daughter to raise, she didn’t think it would be possible. Then, the determination kicked in.

“It was like, ‘You know what, why not just try this out?’ And then I got back into it and started training,” Wheeler said. “I realized I was actually good, so I thought, ‘This can actually be one of my goals that I started when I was younger but was not as committed to the process.’”

The young mom relocated from New York to around Penn State’s campus in State College, Pennsylvania, enrolling in a master’s program in counseling. She began training more intensely and, inspired in part by U.S. Paralympians Tatyana McFadden and Amanda McGrory, entered marathons.

“I think it started off with a little goal, and slowly turned into a much major kind of outcome,” Wheeler said. “I feel like every year I’ve gotten a little bit better, so I’m happy with that.”

In 2020, Wheeler completed her degree and relocated to Argyle, Texas, a suburb of Fort Worth. There, she works counseling people with disabilities, helping them return to the workforce and achieve life goals.

“Disability could be mental health, it could be physical, it could be comorbidities of both,” she said. “A lot of times, there is fear around disability, the thought that, ‘My life is over, what do I do now?’ So, it’s really about educating people on the resources that are out there, and that they have transferable skills to get back into the workforce.”

Eva is thriving in Argyle, doing well in school and competing in track and field as a sprinter.

“It really helped (Eva), me always bringing her to all my events, being around people with disabilities,” Wheeler said. “Seeing all the hard work shaped her into being the athlete and human that she is.”

For Michelle, training in Argyle has pluses and minuses. The climate is more temperate than in the Northeast, but Wheeler is basically on her own, without the teammates and regular in-person coaching she had at Penn State. Santiago Sanz, a four-time Paralympic medalist from Spain, trains her virtually, and the two meet up at events.

“He is a really amazing coach, amazing athlete,” Wheeler said. “A lot of what he does is track my heartrate, talk to me about how training sessions are going — what’s working, what’s not working, and building my routine around that. And it’s been working out well.”

Wheeler thinks many Black women share her challenge of balancing a full-time job and family, with potential training and competition.

“We need to have more diversity, but I also think that limited (Black participation) has a lot to do with resources and finances — there’s no doubt about it, this is an expensive sport,” she said.

Part of the solution, she thinks, is stronger messaging to communities of color. She points to Challenged Athletes Foundation, which awards grants to disabled individuals to assist with the cost of adaptive sports.

“The goal has always been, in order to do this, I have to go to college,” she said. “And I don’t think that’s accurate. … More resources should go out to those communities so that people like me, and other people of color, know there is an opportunity to pursue (adaptive) sports, even if you’re not in college or you didn’t start as a child or teenager.”

Wheeler doesn’t plan on ending her balancing act any time soon. She dreams of qualifying for the Paralympics, if not in 2024, then in 2028.

“I’m focusing now on the 1,500, the 5,000-meters, so I have those standards, and also on continuing to improve my marathon times,” she said. “Every year I have small goals and large goals, so (the Paralympics) is always going to be the end goal, before I retire.”

Lynn Rutherford has covered five Olympic Games, including the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing for USParaTF.org. Based in New York, she is a freelance contributor to TeamUSA.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.