He picked up the sport at just 5-years-old, when he ran his first 5K, and hasn’t looked back. He’s been on the Lake Placid cross country team since seventh grade and has consistently placed near the top of the pack in most races. Francis will be competing at the collegiate level next year at Nazareth University, where he’ll run on the varsity cross country and track teams.

But this almost never happened. When Francis was just 18 months old, it was discovered that he had a rare neural tube defect. The neural tube is the precursor to the central nervous system during fetal development. It normally folds in and closes on its own as the brain and spinal cord form, but in Francis’s case, it didn’t.

That defect nearly left him paralyzed from the waist down — likely for the rest of his life. However, he was able to receive a mobility-saving surgery through Vermont Children’s Hospital.

“Without that surgery, I wouldn’t be walking like I am right now,” he said.

Colin Francis, a graduating senior at Lake Placid High School, smiles along the Adirondack Rail Trail near Old Military Road in Lake Placid on Monday. Francis is training for the Lake Placid Marathon and is running to raise money for the University of Vermont Children’s Hospital as part of his senior capstone project. (Enterprise photo — Chris Gaige)

Now, a graduating senior at Lake Placid High School, he wants to give back to the place that made life as he knows it possible. He is in the midst of training for the Lake Placid Marathon, which is set for June 7. Francis is running the full 26.2 miles and sharing his story with the goal of raising $1,000 for Vermont Children’s Hospital.

It’s part of Francis’s senior capstone project at Lake Placid High School. It requires at least 30 hours of effort. He’ll do most of that through his training and eventual running of the marathon. He started his training at around 20 miles per week and peaked around 50, before tapering down to rest and refuel his body in the weeks leading up to the event. He even took off his senior track season to work on this project.

Francis will also make a presentation in front of LPHS faculty, staff and community members on his project and what he did to make it a successful fundraiser.

Part of that, Francis said, was identifying an organization that’s so crucial to the region. He said the University of Vermont Children’s Hospital is the nearest healthcare center to provide hyper-specialized care for young people. Without it, families would have to travel much further, potentially compromising treatment or, at the least, making it much more disruptive to daily life for many local families.

“It’s really the only place around here where you can get specialists like that,” he said. “It’s important for so many families around here who have young kids or are going through similar issues or need very specific operations done. … We need it there. We need to give back to it.”

This isn’t the first time Francis has used his athletic talent to help a worthy cause. During the coronavirus pandemic, he ran to raise money for local children to purchase books, all the more important at a time when education was gravely disrupted.

Francis said a large part of what made that fundraiser — and what he hopes will make this one — a success is the strength and tight-knit nature of Lake Placid and the Tri-Lakes region communities. To support Francis’s run for Vermont Children’s Hospital, visit tinyurl.com/3hrmcafw.