On an unforgiving 90-degree July afternoon without a cloud in sight, Ann “Sayers” Grooms brushes away sweat from underneath her bike helmet and settles her spikes into starting blocks at the Fred Cone Park track. 

The 20-year-old Gainesville frame runner’s 16×20-meter sprint workout aims to fine-tune any last weaknesses before traveling to Eugene, Oregon, to compete at the U.S. Track and Field Outdoor & Para National Championships starting July 31. 

It will be the first year in national championship history that para-athletes compete at the same time as able-bodied athletes. 

Formerly known as race running, frame running uses a three-wheeled aluminum “frame runner” frame that supports the athlete in a saddle secured behind handlebars as they walk or run. 

Grooms is already a world record holder and holds America’s first world championship medal for frame running. A strong performance in Eugene would punch her ticket to the world championships in September and further a trajectory towards earning a spot on Team USA’s Paralympic team. 

Even before she could walk, Grooms dreamed of being a Paralympian, and the International Paralympic Committee cleared the way after announcing in June it would recognize frame running’s 100-meter T72 event as an official Paralympic sport. 

The recognition is just one piece of an ongoing frame running awareness battle Grooms has fought for years to win for herself, her supporters and the entire disabled community. With more times to chase and more people to help access frame running, she’s just getting started. 

At Fred Cone Park, Grooms leans into the saddle of her aluminum frame and gazes down the straightaway of the track. She takes a few deep breaths and readies for another rep. 

“Come on, get after it on this one,” calls Mary Grooms, her mother and stand-in coach for the day from the infield before blowing her whistle. “Your body’s saying ‘no,’ let’s override it with our brain and our legs.” 

“I have this whole time,” Sayers says after one rep, heading towards her water bottle before the next. 

From the day Sayers was born, Mary said she knew her daughter’s life was and would continue to be nothing short of a miracle. 

An emergency C-section left Sayers in the neonatal intensive care unit with a weak heartbeat and oxygen-deprived brain for 11 days. Even after getting to where she could breathe on her own, the distress on Sayers’ body led to developmental delays and an ataxic cerebral palsy diagnosis limiting her balance, coordination and speed. 

But Sayers’ diagnosis would only be the beginning of what the Grooms family calls “the most beautiful, unexpected journey we could have ever imagined.” 

“I remember when I first saw her, they wheeled her in the incubator,” Mary said. “She had the breathing tube down and she just looked so tiny and tired. I spoke to her, and I said, ‘Hey, Sayers,’ and her eyes popped open and she looked at me, and I knew when that happened, I said ‘okay, we’ve got a fighter here.’” 

For the first few years, Sayers endured rounds of physical, occupational and speech therapy with support from Florida’s Early Steps program. She eventually learned to walk with a walker and started pre-school at Metcalfe Elementary before switching to Oak Hall School to be with her older sister, Harrison, who’s also a runner. 

On the first day of school and just after getting the “sports car” of walkers, Sayers came home to her family with a surprising announcement. 

“I saw no one else [at school] with walkers and I said I’m not using this anymore,” she said. “It was brand new, the best walker you could get. I will always feel a little bad about that.” 

But Sayers and her family never looked back. Whether she strived to keep up with Harrison or other kids on the playground and in gym class, Harrison said Sayers didn’t stop trying to walk and run. No matter how many times she fell, she always got back up and always kept smiling. 

“She’d come home covered in bruises from all of the falling while walking all day,” Harrison said. “She was just determined, running around and playing on the playground. The teachers would always say, ‘she’s falling a lot, but then she gets up with the biggest smile.’” 

From as early as 6 years old, Mary said Sayers told her and her husband she wanted to be a Paralympian.  

She’d tried sports like soccer, lacrosse, swimming and eventually earned a third-degree black belt in Taekwondo. But Sayers couldn’t shake her desire to just run, even though it’s one of the most challenging tasks for someone with ataxic cerebral palsy. 

One night, Mary started searching the internet for ways of bringing Sayers’ dream to life. She came across frame running which Danish athlete, Mansoor Siddiqi, and his occupational therapist, Connie Hansen, invented in 1991 and was up for Paralympic consideration. 

Of the two frame runner distributors in the world, Mary said only one shipped to the U.S. and Hansen herself happened to be the supplier. She ordered one and, after a few hours of assembly, had the frame ready just in time for Sayers’ eighth birthday. 

Sayers still remembers what the first steps around her family’s cul-de-sac on the frame runner felt like because it’s been the same experience every time since. 

“It feels like freedom because I never could run before it,” she said. “It felt like I was flying…a lot of people, it takes them a bit to find form. And I found it immediately.” 

Because the freedom she found in frame running was the greatest gift she’d ever received, Sayers said her first desire was to share it with the world. 

She founded Gainesville Race Runners, now Gainesville Frame Runners, a club for other people with disabilities to try frame running together as a community. 

Recognizing that the material cost of frames ranging from $2,500 to $3,500 is often the largest barrier for people, the Grooms family also started Watch Me Run. All support to the non-profit goes towards providing new frames for individuals or recreational frame running programs around the country.  

Sayers and Mary also founded the North American Frame Running Group in 2022, aiming to attract stakeholders to build up frame runner manufacturing on the continent, a critical factor for the sports infrastructure as demand increases with Paralympic recognition. 

Around a year after her first steps, Sayers started traveling internationally to elite frame running camps and races and working with Gainesville-based Amateur Athletic Union coach Daniel Medley, also known as “Coach Miami.”  

By age 16, Sayers was competing and setting world records against adult frame runners. 

“Sayers was pushing herself to put her best self forward and her best performances forward. Meanwhile, she had athletes all around the world that were being motivated by her and her times,” Harrison said. 

After losing her shoe in a disappointing eighth-place finish at the 2023 World Para Athletics Championships and learning how to balance training during her freshman year at Cornell University, Sayers said the 2023-24 season has been the most challenging yet of her athletic career. 

But with the hope of making a Paralympic team, the drive to push her body to see what it can do and passion to help others along the way, Sayers is still fighting for more. 

“[The Paralympic announcement] just made me feel like my work was starting to pay off in multiple different lenses, as an athlete as well as a disability advocate,” she said. “I like winning. I like knowing I’m the best at something and I know my body can do it. Why not push myself to see what I can do?”