On days like this, when I can barely make it from the kitchen to the bathroom, I sit in awe of a group of people I met from ARC–Activities, Recreation and Care in North Hollywood.  Four intellectually disabled people, three of them nearly my age, have committed to run the Los Angeles Marathon next month.

Don’t be so surprised. The two men in their 40s, Rafael Adame (known as Ralph) and Tim Sathre, have done it four times already plus one Palos Verdes marathon.

This year two women decided to join them. The whole team finished the Rose Bowl half marathon last Jan. 22 and on March 18 Antoinette Mendoza, 43, and Angela Armenta, 26, may be to be the first women with Down syndrome to complete a marathon.

I meet the team at Lake Balboa Park, where they practice on Sundays. (During the week they also use Van Nuys/Sherman Oaks Park and Beeman Park in Studio City.) I recognize them by their yellow t-shirts bearing the ARC and Adults team logo.

Jennifer Davis, ARC Activities Director, introduces me and right away Antoinette, tiny and cute as a button, greets me with a hug. I get a hearty handshake from Ralph, the old man of the group and the original marathoner.

During a pit stop, Tim tells me all about corruption in New York City politics. He didn’t speak until he was 7 but now…just try and stop him.

As we walk to the grass where we’ll talk for the video, little Angela hangs back to throw an arm around my waist and we walk together. These folks are easy to love.  

ARC was created more than 40 years ago by a couple of mothers whose daughters were born with Down syndrome.

“Their daughters didn’t have that peer group and they weren’t seeing the sense of accomplishment,” Davis recounts. “And they wanted their daughters to have a place to belong and grow and learn and be a part of a community.”

At its Whitsett Avenue facility, ARC now offers services to clients of all ages. As the population has grown up, so have offerings like choir, clubs and camping.

Participants can take advantage of “continuing education, independent living skills, art, music, communication skills and community integration” says ARC’s website. Those who live in the agency’s residential program, like Ralph and Antoinette, “make progress in the areas of money management, menu planning and shopping, laundry, banking, cleaning, personal care, safety, and cooperating with roommates and neighbors.”

Davis joined best friends Ralph and Tim for their first marathon in 2004. They took a break to strategize and train then resumed competing in 2009. They also run with upwards of 50 or 60 of their ARC fellow clients at shorter 5K and 10K races. They’ve done seven of those just since last spring. Take a look at the photos in the gallery.

Ralph and Tim have welcomed Antoinette to their marathon coterie and named their team for the new gal. Sign up to sponsor Team Antoinette on their Crowdrise page.

The youngest team ARC member, Angela, a former state champion Special Olympics runner, is joined in training by her older brother Joseph and younger sister Rebecca. Her siblings will run beside her in the marathon, too, as Team Angela. You can sponsor them at their Crowdrise page.

You can also enter to win an iPad2 at the Team Arc page. They are pretty far from their goal so don’t be shy. All proceeds go to promoting the welfare of people with developmental disabilities.

When you watch the L.A. Marathon on March 18, you will recognize the ARC teams by their yellow t-shirts. Also, the women will be wearing tutus, “because we run tutu make a difference,” Davis wrote. And because it looks really cool.