Moorpark Athlete to Compete in Special Olympics Track Meet

Earlier this week, on a sunny Moorpark morning, Amir Shahin put on his running shoes and joined members of the Moorpark High School track team for a quick mile warm-up followed by some timed runs. It’s been part of his weekly Wednesday routine as he readies for a competition in which he’ll participate today.

The 20-year-old Moorpark man might not outrun the track team members, but he keeps up with the younger athletes who work out daily. Impressive, but more so because Shahin was born with conditions that made it even difficult to walk, let alone sprint. Shahin has cerebral palsy, autism and, until recently, had a severe kyphosis, or hunchback, according to his mother.

The cerebral palsy diagnosis came when Shahin was about a year old.

“We knew something was wrong,” said his mother, Toni Solano. “We just didn’t know what.”

When he started walking at about 14-months old, he broke his leg, she said, and his body was bent up, with contraction at the joints.

“But over time, he sort of unfolded,” said his mother.

Since July, he’s had some help “unfolding.” That’s when he started strength training at the Moorpark Athletic Center, or MAC, with personal trainer Cat Conti. A therapist had suggested Shahin work with a trainer to develop his back muscles as a way to help straighten him up.

The training has the added benefit of helping Shahin maintain a healthy lifestyle.

“I am intent on getting him fit for life,” Toni Solano said. “I want him to know what it’s like to feel good.”

In addition to helping him feel better in general and make it possible to join his active family in physically demanding adventures, the training has helped with the kyphosis and to look at him now, it isn’t obvious that less than a year ago he had a severely hunched back.

Somewhere along the line, the family heard about this weekend’s Special Olympics competition and taking part in it became a goal for Amir, who started running originally while he was a student at Moorpark High School. His adaptive physical education teacher, Jeanine Alexander, noted his running ability and encouraged it.

“She just laced up her running shoes and ran with him,” said Solano.

In November, Conti and Shahin began a training regime that included running timed intervals on the treadmill.

“Each time, without telling him, I’d set it a little faster and at a little steeper of an incline,” she said, noting the improvement in his speed and endurance.

She said seeing the improvement in his running and strength has been rewarding.

“That’s the whole thing. That’s why we show up every day,” said Conti, who is joined in the training program by MAC staff member Courtney Robinson.

More recently, MAC program and fitness director Gus Guardino, who also works with the high school track team, suggested Shahin come run with the team.

“It just kind of happened,” said Guardino. “For the kids, it brought a bunch of them together.”

For Solano, whose brother ran track for Moorpark, the camaraderie was a welcome change to working out in the gym.

“I like running with the boys,” he said.

And the boys like running with him.

“I want to encourage him and motivate him to be a track star so he can feel like somebody,” said sophomore runner Sergio Maldonado.

“Even if he doesn’t win, he wins because at least he tried and I can say I helped him,” he said.

Maldonado likened the team to a family and “he’s becoming part of that family, like a brother,” he said of Shahin.

With the ribbing between Shahin and the coaches and other runners, it would appear the feeling is mutual.

But as much as Shahin enjoys being part of a team and is looking forward to the competition—where he’ll run the 200 and the 1600—he runs for the joy of running.

“He's not focused on being first," said his mother. "He doesn’t want to finish last, but he runs because it just feels good.”

And so today’s competition in Agoura isn’t about disabilities and what they stop Shahin from doing. It’s about overcoming obstacles, achievement and feeling good. And if he happens to take home a gold, all the better.