Mt. Valley Middle School teacher Debbie Bumgardner is all smiles after finishing the Austin Marathon, one of seven marathons she’s completed. Courtesy photo

When Mountain Valley Middle School teacher Debbie Bumgardner went into surgery to hopefully fix her spine that closely resembled the letter “S,” running was the farthest thing from her mind.

Her thoughts were more on the fact that scoliosis had bent her upper and lower spine to near 40-degree angles.

She also worried about the fact that the curvature was putting pressure on her lungs and ribs, making both breathing and walking difficult, and that before the surgery, she had to sign papers giving the okay to place two metal rods so near her spinal column that doctors couldn’t guarantee she’d ever walk again.

“By that time, my lungs were literally being crushed,” Bumgardner said. “It was so painful. It was tough even to walk to the mailbox.”

Diagnosed at age 14, she was 24 when it became apparent Bum-gardner would need the surgery to have any chance of a normal life.

Doctors hoped the surgery, performed in February 1995, would return Bumgardner’s curvature back to the 20-degree angle it was when she was a teen, but even better results occurred, as the Harrington rods that were inserted helped stabilize her spine at 10 degrees.

Although Bumgardner had immediate relief from her breathing difficulties, she couldn’t get out of bed or do anything on her own for two weeks.

The slow road to recovery began with two steps off her front porch, and progressed to a slow walk down her block within six weeks.

Bumgardner never thought about jogging as a form of rehabilitation, until her doctor, Albert Sanders – a marathoner – suggested she do so several months after her surgery.

Believe it or not, within 15 months, Bumgardner was not only jogging, but decided to enter a 5K (3.1-mile) run at the Canyon Lake Dam.

“A little more than a year before I couldn’t even walk across the Canyon Lake Dam, but I finished the 5K,” Bumgardner said. “I found out I really liked the camaraderie with the other runners. I decided to look for a 10K and found one a year later in Gruene.”

Less than two years later, Bumgardner had her sights set on the San Antonio Marathon (26.1 miles) – she finished and hasn’t looked back.

Bumgardner has now finished a total of seven marathons, including races in Anchorage and Chicago. She has also raised more than $9,000 for leukemia research racing with Team in Training.

She plans on running in the Medtronics Twin Cities Marathon in Minneapolis/ St. Paul, Minn. Bumgard-ner will be a sponsored runner by host Medtronics, a medical technology company, based on her medical history.

“I cried at the end of my first marathon,” she said. “To go from where I was to where I am now is pretty hard to believe. My goal now is to run a marathon in every city in the nation, including the New York Marathon.”

In addition to her running prowess, Bumgard-ner went back to school and earned her master’s in education from Texas State University and is now teaching science at Mountain Valley Middle School, a campus the former salutatorian at Smithson Valley High once attended.

She’s coaches the seventh- and eighth-grade cross country teams, and has had a great influence on her students.

“Coach Bumgardner is such an inspiration to me,” said Kelly Anderson, a cross country team member. “She knows all the right tricks to help me improve my running.”

Understandably, Bumgardner’s mother is also blown away with what her daughter has accomplished.

“It’s just amazing to see the progress she’s made,” she said.

“I’m so proud of everything she’s done, and I hope she continues to be an inspiration to others.”