For 34 years, thousands of runners     1    （take）on the Marathon des Sables, a 140-mile race through the Sahara.     2    (consider) the world’s most difficult race, des Sables takes place over the course of six days through Morocco’s unforgiving Sahara.

At 46, Amy Palmiero-Winter is not what most picture when they think of     3     athlete, but for her, running has been a lifelong passion: an escape, a comfort, a calling. So, when a careless driver crashed into her motorcycle 25 years ago and damaged her left leg, she did everything she could     4    （save）it.

She couldn’t imagine not running. But three years and 25 operations later it became obvious that her leg would never     5    （true）recover. But hardships couldn’t keep her from running. In fact, they may have pushed her     6    （close）towards it. “When something bad happened to me, I went out for a run. It kept me from any darkness.” Palmiero-Winter said. After recovering from her amputation, she tried running again. Struggling     7    low-tech artificial legs, in 2004 she placed second in the Silver Strand Half Marathon. Today, she holds 11 world records and countless awards,     8    （include）the James E. Sullivan Award and others,     9    recognized her as the world’s top amateur athlete nearly a decade ago.

But as her latest     10    （achieve）at the Marathon des Sables shows, she’s nowhere near done.