When she ran, she no longer had to harbor a secret

…the more she raced, “the more I felt like people saw me as an athlete, and not as someone who looked different.”

For almost 20 years, she hid the truth about the autoimmune disease that took all of her hair. Then she discovered running. When she ran, she no longer had to harbor a secret.

Lindsay Walter was born with red hair. Two years later, it began falling out in clumps the size of quarters, according to runnersworld.com. She had alopecia reata universalis, an autoimmune disease that causes total body hair loss and also prevents hair from growing back. In weeks, the article said, Walter was completely bald.

Walter got her first wig when she was four, she told the magazine, and as time went by, she realized that no one else in her neighborhood had alopecia. She said support groups were “not a thing in Slinger, Wisconsin,” where she lived.

In middle school, she told runnersworld.com, she “was bullied for the way my wig looked,” with kids taunting her by saying, ‘Lindsay doesn’t have hair’ and ‘You’re a baldy.’”

According to the article, she never told her teachers “because I disliked attention.” But, she said, the teasing made her think she was ugly. “I hated looking in the mirror, so much so that I stood in the hallway or another room when I brushed my teeth to avoid my reflection,” she added.

Afraid the wig would fall off, Walter “went to pretty extreme lengths to keep my wig on.” Every day, she used “double-sided tape to secure my wig in three spots on my head,” the article said.

becoming a marathon runner

Despite her condition, Walter played sports throughout elementary, middle and high school and in college at the University of Minnesota Duluth, the article said. And her wig came with her. She told the website, “I would go to the car or cram myself into a bathroom stall at halftime or between games to change the tape. I also used a special type of glue to keep it in place. “

When she was a senior in college, she said her “natural competitiveness and desire to call myself ‘marathoner,'” drove her to sign up for a  26.2 marathon “as a one-time bucket-list thing.” She said the other runners were “extremely friendly and supportive, wishing me good luck as we toed the line together.”

During the race, she told the magazine, people cheered her in ways she had never experienced when she played basketball. And when she crossed the finish line, “a sense of pride washed over me…I’m a marathoner.”

According to runnersworld.com, Walter then became “hooked on long-distance running” and set a goal to run “27 marathons by the time I turned 27.” She moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, after her graduation and “began working my way towards that, marathon by marathon.”

She told the magazine that the more she raced, “the more I felt like people saw me as an athlete, and not as someone who looked different,” adding that instead of commenting on her alopecia, they would compliment her on her time.

She said, “Turns out, the more I ran, the less I focused on my alopecia.”

a breakthrough

Then three years ago, she did what she thought she would never do: She took her wig off as she ran one day. She said that as she ran “something came over me. It was hard to explain, but something compelled me to rip my wig off. I started crying.”

As she held the wig, her “security for the past 20-plus years,” she told runnersworld.com she felt like a “weight had been lifted off my shoulders” and that she “was finally free to be me.”

“This was the moment I’d always wanted, and running had helped it become a reality,” she said.

Now, when she ran, she no longer had to harbor a secret.

For photos and more about Lindsay Walter, click here.

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