ADRIAN — Bill Kenyon has an article about his friend and running buddy Amy Dodson posted on his refrigerator.

An avid runner, Mr. Kenyon knows the pain of running a marathon. His friend knows the challenge of running the 26.2-mile race as an amputee.

That's why he tacked a note to himself next to Amy's picture with the words: “What's your excuse for not running today?”

“To say she's inspirational is a huge understatement,” said Mr. Kenyon, 49, vice president for advancement at Adrian College. “Amy is one of the most positive people you'll ever meet.”

Mrs. Dodson called her path to marathon running “ironic,” because at one time, it hurt simply to walk.

When she was 10 years old, a pain in her left foot became so intense, she began regular visits to the doctor. Two years later, during exploratory surgery, doctors discovered a cancerous tumor.

Doctors told her she had undifferentiated sarcoma, a rare form of cancer that usually grows in the extremities and strikes young people.

At age 12 and again four years later, doctors removed the tumor from her foot. But when the pain returned again at age 19, doctors decided she would have to undergo amputation and chemotherapy.

“It was devastating, but it was almost a relief,” said Mrs. Dodson, 39, of Adrian. “I was in pain for half of my life, and I was tired of it. Once I got over the initial shock, I was glad.”

Three weeks after her surgery and a week after returning to the University of Arizona, Mrs. Dodson was fitted with a prosthetic leg. She went through 11/2 years of physical therapy, where she learned to walk again.

At that point, she decided not to let anyone know about her cancer or prosthetic leg.

More than 15 years later — after losing a lung to cancer and perfecting the use of her prosthetic leg — Mrs. Dodson finally asked herself, “Why not?''

Four years ago, Mrs. Dodson, an elementary school teacher, participated in a 5K run in Tennessee, where she lived. She ran the first half of the race, then walked the rest of the way.

“I made it, and I was absolutely thrilled,” she said. “I just felt totally accepted by these runners. I remember thinking, ‘This is my place.'”

Mrs. Dodson worked her way up from a 5K race to a 10K to a marathon. She has participated in six marathons nationwide, inclu|ding the Boston Marathon, where she became the first female am|putee to run the legendary race.

She has upgraded her prosthetic leg and uses a lightweight device that has shaved nearly an hour off her original marathon times. Her best is 4 hours and 32 minutes, which she ran in December, 2000, in Jacksonville, Fla.

Mrs. Dodson attributes much of her success to the support from others and help from her local prosthetist, Jan Stokosa of Stokosa Prosthetic Clinic near Lansing.

She said the days of blisters and lesions on her leg are all but gone.

Mrs. Dodson moved to this city last year when her husband, John, was hired as the new conductor of the Adrian Symphony Orchestra.

Madison schools hired her as a fifth-grade teacher, and she spends most of her time teaching or running. She has run a few laps with her students on the school track and plans to run her second Boston Marathon on April 15.

“I think the greatest gift running has given me is a sense of accepting myself,” she said. “I've been able to be completely comfortable with being an amputee and being a cancer survivor. I don't have to hide it anymore. This is who I am, and I'm fine with that.”

First Published March 18, 2002, 2:41 p.m.