CEDAR FALLS, Ia. — Under 40 minutes.

As Wendy Flores gabs with her teammates while warming up during a recent high school cross-country meet in Cedar Falls, the 17-year-old senior quietly repeats that day’s goal to herself.

Finish the course in under 40 minutes.

For many runners at this meet, completing a 5K in less than 40 minutes is a virtual certainty. But Wendy is different from her peers, a fact she’s rejected most of her young life.

Legally blind, she’s Dubuque Senior High School’s first visually impaired cross-country runner. And though she may be running on the same course as everyone else, she’s running her own race.

It’s a race that doesn’t end by beating a rival school or getting to the state championship. It’s a race where doing your best is more than enough and where finally understanding that being different doesn’t mean being less than everyone else is as good as coming in first.

It’s the race Wendy has been running her whole life.

After years of being bullied in middle school, Wendy built a wall between herself and the outside world in an attempt to hide her disability.

Each demeaning comment about her sight added a new layer of drywall, and each snicker when she tripped on the stairs was another coat of paint.

The “old Wendy,” as she calls her younger self, was always scared and embarrassed to ask for help.

But as the finish line of high school approached, she decided to break through the wall she’d built. Come graduation, what happens in her life will be her choosing, she said, so why not try something she’s always wanted to do: running.

She also wants to master the techniques and gain the confidence she needs to continue running while she can.

The condition that causes her blindness, retinitis pigmentosa, is a rare degenerative disorder, meaning her vision will likely continue to fade. She may eventually lose the ability to see entirely.

But that is far from Wendy's mind as she prepares to run on this sticky afternoon. The course at Cedar Falls is difficult, featuring steep hills and uneven ground, and she is a bit nervous about how close the track is to a small pond.

She joined the team a week into the season, and this was her second race. But Flores said she likes to count smaller victories: Each step closer to the finish line marks a new high point on her journey to self-acceptance.

“When I’m running, I feel proud and strong like I can finish the run,” she said. “I just feel the breeze and enjoy the run. Like nobody else has done before.”

Flores queued up on the starting line connected to her guide runner, Corrie Ann DeMuth, by a white tether. Waiting for the sound of the starting gun, she quietly repeated her goal once more.

Finish in under 40 minutes.

Taunting to track

The summer before high school, Flores wrote a bucket list for her next four years.

The first bullet points focused inward: Think positive, don’t let things get you down, ignore the haters.

Middle school had done a number on Wendy, who moved to Dubuque from Mexico with her family when she was an infant.

Some students targeted her for their bullying, she said, making fun of how slow she read, pushing her in the hallways and breaking her pencils.

They would take things from inside her backpack or pull on it so it wrenched her back.

The taunts got so bad that she stopping carrying anything with her, and, slowly, she just stopped talking.

“When she started at Senior, she was so quiet,” said Gina Richman, Wendy’s guidance counselor. “She’d even tell you that and say things like, ‘I am a silent person.’ She didn’t want any attention drawn to her.”

But Wendy, who started to lose her vision at about age 7, found high school to be more inviting.

“People were kind and supportive with me, and I had new friends," she said. "People would say, 'Hi!' in the hallways just to be nice.”

So she moved to the next items on her bucket list: Be fearless, get good grades, graduate.

As a happier Wendy emerged, her vision grew dimmer.

She’d resisted the idea of using a cane, but after attending a summer camp hosted by the Iowa Department of the Blind, she got used to the mobility it offered and started bringing it to school.

She was becoming comfortable with “who she was an individual with a visual impairment,” said Chrissy Murphy, an orientation and mobility specialist who works with Wendy.

“Once she identified that it’s OK to have a disability, and it’s OK to be a little different, I think that awoke something in her to where she came alive,” Murphy said. “She just said to herself, 'I don’t care who’s watching me, and I don’t care what anybody says, I'm going to do things because I want to do them and I can do them.'"

Wendy focused intensely on her studies for the first three years of high school and found herself with enough credits to graduate at the beginning of this year.

So she filled her day with elective courses that interested her, and she went back to the list.

Next up: Join the cross-country team.

Running with angels

About a week into the cross-country season, Flores texted coach Louie Fischer and asked to join the team.

Dubuque public schools’ philosophy is to encourage participation by "students at all levels and abilities," said Amy Hawkins, the district’s activities and athletics supervisor.

“Between all the interaction with new people and peers and the opportunities those students get to travel, we find that kids who participate in activities tend to have a better high school experience. And we want that for every single kid who has an interest,” Hawkins said.

After Flores got the proper physicals, the school reached out to the Girls High School Athletic Union and secured the paperwork it needed for her participation.

The rules are simple: She may be connected to a guide runner by a tether during competition, but the guide runner can’t ever be in front of Flores’ stride.

Wendy’s disability means her field of vision is smaller, basically comparable to what a normally sighted person sees when looking through a doughnut. In addition to losing peripheral vision, she’s also night blind.

So DeMuth, her guide runner, has to be hyper aware of objects on the ground or anything that might come at Flores from the sides.

“I see my role as being Wendy’s eyes,” DeMuth said. “She sets the pace, and I follow her and once we get into the course, that’s where she needs my eyes.”

When the two run, it doesn’t feel like a competition. They are serious about the contest, but they cut the tension by bouncing back and forth like Lucy and Desi, each one getting a zinger in before the other responds in kind.

For Wendy, running has always been fascinating. It’s also a very accessible activitiy, said coach Fischer.

Running “is a sport that anyone can kind of pick up and do if they work hard and are patient with the process,” he said. “There are no limitations if you don’t put them on yourself. … If you like to move, and if you are comfortable enough with discomfort, you can do it.”

Wendy’s stamina has grown immensely since she started running about a month ago, Fischer said. She used to walk during a two-lap warmup, but now she can run miles.

When she does get tired, though, she stares at the clouds for inspiration, a quirk all of her teammates notice.

For Wendy and her family, clouds are representative of angels, she said. So when the course gets tough — like it did in Cedar Falls — she imagines herself running up in the clear blue sky, among her very own pack of angels.

Once in a blue moon

Every so often, Wendy checks the list she wrote before high school and notes the items she still wants to check off before her time at Senior ends: Perform in a school musical, enter an art contest, try out for the talent show.

After graduation, she plans to attend an intensive home-management program at the Iowa Department of the Blind in Des Moines. Then she hopes to go to a two-year college and maybe transfer to get a bachelor’s degree.

In the future, she wants to work with blind children or possibly be a translator.

But right now she is focused on cross country, and for those on the team, her determination is inspiring.

“The other day, I was in my car after practice and I started crying,” said senior Mia Rampton. “I was just thinking about how Wendy doesn’t let anything get her down and how hard she is trying on the track and in the weight room.

"Anything that I have going on, it’s nothing, absolutely nothing compared to the hardships she has overcome.”

Fischer puts it this way: As a coach, you come across certain athletes once in a blue moon; people who are naturally gifted or have a brain wired for the sport.

To him, Wendy's spirit makes her one of those athletes. She could have made a long list of reasons why she shouldn’t join his team, he said, but she just focused on the fact that she wanted to do it.

“The kids know Wendy is doing everything she can to get the most out of herself,” he said. “Maybe someone with fewer physical limitations is having a bad day and can think of things that can keep them from doing their best.

"They don’t need me to tell them that Wendy is providing inspiration. I think they get that loud and clear.”

In Cedar Falls, the finish was at the end of the long, flat straightaway. With about a quarter of a mile to go and no more turns ahead, Wendy dropped the tether and DeMuth peeled away.

She sprinted the final meters with everything she had.

Seeing her approach, her teammates gathered near the end. They shouted and cheered and gave her big bear hugs as soon as she crossed the finish line.

Other girls had worked themselves so hard they were sobbing when they completed the course, but Wendy was smiling from ear to ear.

The clock read 37 minutes, 38 seconds.