The first time Otis Ubriaco’s thigh went numb, he didn’t think much of it. In his mind, a quick breather and a deep massage would do the trick.

But it happened again and again and again throughout his sophomore season until the Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake (Burnt Hills, N.Y.) distance runner lost feeling in both his legs at the final meet of the 2009 outdoor track season.

For most people, the diagnosis would have been simple — fatigue. But for someone who had been breaking records since the eighth grade, it just didn’t add up.

An extended break from running wasn’t an option for the stubborn Ubriaco, and just one week passed before he resumed training. But the pain soon returned, only this time the catalyst was a long trip in the car.

“I guess that ride pushed it over the edge because I had this insane pain in my knees,” Ubriaco says. “I went to one doctor who would tell me to do this and another one would tell me to do that, but nobody had an answer for what the problem was.

Photo by: Kelly Kline Pain and numbness in his thighs last year cast a shadow over Otis Ubriaco's career.

“It wasn’t until September that I found out something was wrong, and by then, I had been injured for almost a year.”

Clarity came at the start of Ubriaco’s junior season after an MRI on his back. The test revealed he had a weak set of back and core muscles, which was forcing extra pressure to be placed on the nerves in his hamstrings and knees and causing the numbness.

Put simply, Ubriaco wasn’t exercising enough.

“I had bugged him before about working out his core, and like most kids his age he just said, ‘Yeah, whatever,’” recalls Ubriaco’s mom, Debbie.

Thing is, he had been a mainstay among the state’s top runners throughout his struggle with injury.

Just months after the initial numbness during cross country season, Ubriaco took second at the Class A state meet followed by a third-place showing at the state Federation championship. He capped his sophomore XC season with a 12th-place finish at the Nike Cross Nationals New York Regional.

Yet while the success felt good, it did little to ease the feeling — or lack thereof — that came from competing in the sport he loved.

Turns out mother had known best, as Ubriaco’s remedy was to spend more time doing core and stretching exercises, which he now does for an hour before dinner each night.

“He’s completely religious about it, and you can really see a difference,” Debbie says. “So it turned out to be good for him.”

This wasn’t the first time Debbie’s instincts were right on the money. When Otis was in middle school, she urged him to take up track, recalling the days when as a 3-year-old he tirelessly ran in zigzags alongside his family during walks through the woods.

But with his dreams set elsewhere — no matter how unrealistic they may have been — Ubriaco embraced running about as much as Lady Gaga embraces a normal wardrobe.

“I really didn’t want to run at all. It seemed boring, and I always wanted to be an NBA or NFL player,” he says. “I just kind of looked past the fact that I was under 6 feet and couldn’t jump.”

But that mindset shifted after a low-key freshman-year jog with BH -BL cross country and track coach Chip Button. During the run, Ubriaco recognized that he had an innate talent for the sport — one Button had noticed a couple years earlier.

Photo by: Kelly Kline Ubriaco claimed his first state track crown last spring by running 9:04.75 in the 3,200.

“I realized back when Otis was a seventh-grader that he had a natural instinct that never allowed him to get in a race and be in way over his head,” Button says. “He’s very smooth and settles in on his own. You’d like for a lot of kids to have that, but it’s a natural thing for Otis.”

Prior to his injury, Ubriaco admits he depended too much on that instinctive ability and dismissed the need to train and run frequently on his own time.

“I’m completely glad [the injury] happened,” says Ubriaco, who now runs on his own every Sunday. “It sucked at first, missing the start of last season. And in late September I thought I was done for the year. But if it wasn’t for realizing the importance of stretching and training my core, I probably wouldn’t have recovered or been as fluid as I am now.”

In addition to his newfound commitment to training, Ubriaco began to tirelessly research the art of running.

“He pays a ton of attention to the sport and is always on websites like DyeStat,” says former BH-BL teammate Chris Fernandez, who graduated in the spring. “There’s a quote: ‘Hard work beats talent [when] talent doesn’t work hard.’ Ideally, you want to have talent and work harder than everybody else, and that’s Otis. That definitely gives him an edge.”

Once he did reach 100 percent health, Ubriaco ran a 15:44.1 to take first at the Class A state meet and help the Spartans secure their second consecutive team title. After a second-place finish behind Max Straneva of Chenango Valley (Binghamton, N.Y.) at the state Federation meet, Ubriaco bested his rival a week later at the NXN regional race. Ubriaco made his move with 1,000 meters to go, surging from seventh place to capture first in a time of 16:03.4 and qualify for the Nike Cross Nationals in Portland, Ore., where he took 50th. He went on to claim his first track state crown in the spring when he won the 3,200 in 9:04.75.

“Otis has a comfort level on the course where he knows he can run with anyone, even if they beat him the week before,” Button says. “With that level of confidence and the right prep, he’s showing a lot more command in races where you can see people being more cautious of his ability on the course.”

It wasn’t long ago that all Ubriaco’s legs brought him was pain. These days, he’s much happier that those same legs are tormenting other runners instead.