My journey continues but it has been given an additional purpose. That’s fine with me. Whatever comes my way is all part of the adventure.
Yet, I’m still doing more of the same. Right now, I’m in the midst of a marathon challenge called Boston 2 Big Sur (B2B). It’s a combination of running the Boston Marathon and then, six days later, the one in Big Sur, California. After running the Chicago and Boston marathons on consecutive days last year, this one seems almost routine. Yeah, right.
While on the Boston leg of B2B, I took the opportunity to reconnect with some of the people I met through the 2021 WMM challenge. Back then I started out as a nobody. For the most part, I’m still a nobody.
However, there are some now who refer to me as the other guy who did what Shalane Flanagan did. That has given me some status and a platform for stating my views on and experience with Parkinson’s disease. On a few occasions lately, I have been asked to speak on the subject and I am always happy to do so in hopes that others will derive benefit from my words. It seems that there are too few Parkies who are willing to share their experiences publicly and I can speak with some certainty on the benefit of exercise as a therapy.
And I continue to make the effort to meet new friends. That’s one thing that hasn’t changed: Marathon runners are great people.
On the plane to Boston, I sat next to Peter who lives on Bainbridge Island. He started running Boston in 2009 and has kept his streak going since. “Streakers” who have run ten or more consecutive Boston Marathons are not subjected to cutoff times, a nice advantage. Peter was a software engineer at Amazon who started there in 1998. No surprise, then, that he was able to retire two years ago at age 50.
We discussed many things about running and family life and eventually I thought to ask him about the Boston in 2013, the year of the bombing. He had already finished and was showering when the bombs went off so he didn’t hear them. But his phone was inundated with messages from friends and family wondering if he was OK. Normally runners proudly wear their finishers’ medals around town after the race but he couldn’t bring himself to do so that year.
He was touched and impressed with Boston’s resolve to bring the race back the next year undeterred. If anything, he reported, the energy was greater in 2014 than ever before.
My Airbnb was in the South End very close to the Hynes Auditorium, where the Expo was held, and also well-placed with respect to the finish line, the Public Garden, and the Common. It was a great location for the various activities I planned for the weekend.
I am a subscriber to Runners World+ (RW+) which allows me access to their on-line knowledge base covering everything having to do with running. As a special perk, RW+ invited subscribers running in Boston to a Saturday morning group shakeout run and coffee afterwards.
Marathoners like to do one or more “shakeout” runs before race day. These are short, slow-paced workouts of three to four miles intended to keep the body alert. Until now I had always done my shakeouts solo but by doing so, I have missed the opportunity to meet other runners. Marathons are opportunities to socialize so this time I decided to take advantage.
We met on Boylston Street close to the marathon finish, which also served as the finish line for the BAA 5K race. After watching the 5K the finish, we headed out for the run. RW+ sent a sizable crew of maybe eight uniformly pleasant and friendly staff members including the Runner’s World Runner-in-Chief Jeff Dengate. Jeff was kind enough to look me up on Strava and sent a congratulatory note in response to my post of Monday’s marathon.
Another RW staff member I met, Jesus Ruiz, from Texas also started following me on Strava which turned out to be an almost sacrilegious experience. Strava notifies subscribers when new athletes start following their posts so in this case my notification was:
“Nice! Jesus is now following you!”
Heady stuff for someone raised as a catholic. And on the day before Easter no less.
I had the chance to chat with some other runners on the shakeout. Eamon was one who lived near Portland so he and I were familiar with some of the marathons held in the Pacific Northwest. If memory serves, he got his Boston qualification time (BQ) at the Portland Marathon which has an insane course map. On the route there are 75 right angle turns. Difficult to establish and maintain a strong pace through that maze.
I also fell into conversation with Craig, a dairy farmer from Toronto. This was an education; I learned a lot about dairy farming in general and about Canada’s policies regarding the industry. According to Craig, Canada, unlike the US, likes to keep their farms small so as to preserve the country’s culture. By this measure, Craig’s farm is large with 83 cows.
What really fascinated me though was the robotic milking system he used. Craig used his phone to show me a live video feed of the system in action. The robot literally does everything so that Craig doesn’t need to hire extra help. And because a robot can milk the animal around the clock, he gets 25% more yield from a cow than with a human milker.
It made me think of John Henry and his futile battle with progress in the form of the steam drill. If I was a little more quick-witted, I would have sung something to Craig along the lines of “Before I let that machine beat me down, I’ll die with Bessie’s teat in my hand.”
After the shakeout we all sat down for coffee at Pressed Café in the Prudential Center. RW+ had reserved a separate room for us and offered breakfast, a very thoughtful gesture. I just had some coffee, a treacherous thing given my snobbery about the stuff and the fact that I was to meet another runner, Carita, a little while later for more coffee. I was destined for the jitters and motor-mouth the rest of the day.
RW likes to highlight stories about some of their subscribers so as each of us left the cafe, they did a video interview of them to gather potential material. I did my usual shtick about my 2021 WMM challenge and what not. Maybe I will hear back from them.
I met Carita near the marathon finish line and we caught up over espresso and latte. We first became acquainted totally by chance while on line at the Expo for Boston 2021 in October and since then we have followed each other on Strava. Just two weeks earlier she took part in the Marathon des Sables, the famous 250 kilometer multi-day stage race in the Sahara Desert. She struggled with a heavy pack carrying all of her food and bedding, 100+ degree heat, sand storms, and here she was running the Boston marathon immediately afterwards. Amazing.
Carita has sarcoidosis that affects her lungs and breathing which makes her running feats all that much more astonishing. She regaled me with tales from the desert and urged me to try it sometime. (Not likely, I think.) We share a perspective though. We both have diseases that have influenced our views on life and impel us to make the most of what we can while we can. As she says, “The alternative is to get depressed and end up living on the couch.”
Darien, my hero from the October race for transporting me from Logan Airport to my Airbnb after returning from the Chicago Marathon, hosted a carb-heavy lunch gathering along with his wife Ela at their home in Brookline. He invites locals to such gatherings whenever college friends come to town and I have been happy to be the impetus this time as I was in October.
He assembled a large crew: Mark and wife Alex, Andreas and wife Jen and daughter Greta, Steve and his date Trina, Rich and daughter Lizzie, and Hauke. We caught up and discussed running and upcoming vacations. Most of us are nerdy and so the non-nerds in attendance had to indulge us while we debated Wordle strategies.
Afterwards, I had just enough time to get to the Expo before it closed to retrieve my race packet. It was a much more relaxed atmosphere than in October. All runners required proof of vaccination prior to registering so there was no vaccination-check tent this time around. The Expo was larger also but by the time I got there the booths were mostly unmanned so I didn’t linger very long.
At the Airbnb I topped off my carb loading for the day with pasta and a baked potato. On the course I planned to consume maple syrup packets sold by Untapped, a Vermont-based (of course) company. I’ve found them easy to consume and they don’t bother my stomach. As they are liquid they should digest quickly also.
Sunday morning was another shakeout run, this time with the “Run Farther & Faster” group led by Julie Sapper and Lisa Levin. Julie and Lisa featured me in one of their November podcasts and invited me to join them for their shakeout. It was great to finally meet them and they introduced me to the rest of the group as the other guy who did what Shalane did in the fall.
Karyn, who I met in Berlin, was there and so we got a chance to talk again. Her husband, Mark, stayed home with the kids this time. Another runner, Jessica, introduced herself and thanked me for the example I was setting with my openness about PD. We chatted while running and she told me of her sister who kept her diagnosis of MS secret from everyone for more than a decade. She felt as if her sister might have benefitted from a more open approach as would her family.
Afterwards I met up with Suzanne from Southern California for more coffee. We met in Berlin in September. She also ran in London and Boston in the fall and we have been following each other on Strava. She says she doesn’t train all that hard but nevertheless qualified for the Abbott age group world championships again this year, a considerable feat. I do meet a lot of amazing people when I go to these marathons.
I found myself thinking of how relaxed this day was compared to the day before October’s Boston Marathon. In fact, for the previous race my shakeout run was the Chicago Marathon. I even had some free time in the afternoon that I used for a baked potato lunch and a relaxing nap in preparation for the pre-race dinner with my friends from Team Fox.
I qualified for Boston this time around but nonetheless Team Fox invited me to all their parties. Every year they ask a dedicated member to speak at the pre-race dinner to offer words of encouragement to the team and to share what Team Fox means to them. Katie Casamassina wrote to me saying, “We would be honored if this person was you!”
Such requests have been coming my way as of late because of my exploits with the World Major Marathons last fall. Newly diagnosed Parkinson’s patients have contacted me for one-on-one discussions and some groups have asked for presentations. It has only been a handful to date but I am glad for the opportunity.
My speeches and presentations are still a little rough but I am getting better at it with experience. I go into some detail about how running has slowed the progression of PD for me as evidenced by dramatically reduced symptoms and the fact that I have not increased my medications in the past two years. Then I make the case for keeping a positive mindset for two reasons.
First, positivity is necessary for putting in the training. Running requires mental as well as physical training. Lack of discipline in either the mind or the body will derail the effort.
Second, the decrease in a Parkie’s dopamine levels, besides its effect on motor functions, can bring on mood problems and it is common for PD patients to suffer from depression. I can give examples how I have deliberately altered my mood by dismissing negative thoughts and I can also attest to the positive energy coming from friends, family, and strangers who cheer me on during the marathons that I run.
I also like to slip in a plug for the book I am writing about my 2021 WMM journey, which expands on these themes. (You didn’t know I was writing a book? Sorry about that. I hope to publish this summer; all my royalties, if anyone actually buys the book that is, will go to the Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF).)
I think that my speech at the pre-race dinner had the desired effect. Katie and the rest of the Team Fox organizers were effusively grateful as was Skip Irving, the MJFF Board Chairman, who had also addressed the group. Some in attendance mentioned to me afterwards that they were moved to action as a result of my words. These words are music to my ears. Tops off my own dopamine tank.
Runners amassed at the edge of the Boston Common for the bus ride to Hopkinton for the start. With the larger field size compared to October (30,000 runners vs. 20,000) the scene was more chaotic than the last time around but everyone was courteous and patient. In fact, it is safe to say that the energy level in Boston throughout this weekend was noticeably higher than in October. It seemed the city and its people were eager for the event’s return to April.
I rode on the bus next to Kevin, an elementary school principal from Bellingham, Washington, and his daughter, Andrea. They are both accomplished runners but Kevin’s priority was for them to cross the finish line together. Reminded me of some of the triathlons I did together with my daughter, Kinsey. But they had a practical side to their goal. Kevin was not going to hold Andrea back if he could not keep up with her pace.
Hopkinton had a very large Athletes’ Village set up with portable toilets and room to spread out, stretch, and otherwise prepare for the race. The waves were called out in order so as to effect an orderly start. This was much different than October’s rolling start where runners were deposited closer to the start line and just started the race on their own timeline. Most of the runners I talked to about this preferred the rolling start as did I.
While in the Athletes’ Village, in search of a short line for a toilet, John, who I met in Berlin in September, flagged me down. We had been trying to connect all week but never could get our schedules in sync. But out of the 30,000 runners in the village he spotted me. Our wave was being called so we decided to use the alternative group of toilets that we would pass en route to the starting line. A good plan because the lines there were much shorter .
John was there with other runners from his PRx running group from Houston including Brooke who I also met in Berlin. Her husband, James, and son, Cooper, were going to cheer for them when they got close to the finish line.
The energy along the route was also higher than in the October race. Crowds were bigger, the cheering was louder and more enthusiastic. This, I felt, was what Boston wanted to be and the October race was a more tentative ad hoc version.
My goal for the race was to finish in under four hours. This is well off my personal record of 3:42 but I had to be realistic about saving something for the next weekend when I would be running the Big Sur Marathon. I was hopeful; I was still at that pace all the way to mile 19. But then things went south.
When I go for a run, I plan ahead for the medications I need to take along the way. I bring a small zip lock bag for storing the pills because one time I carried them loose in a pocket and my sweat dissolved them completely.
I program my watch alarm as a reminder. I’ll take a Sinemet tablet at 10 am and 2 pm and an Eldepryl at noon. But sometimes I won’t take the pill immediately when the alarm goes off and I’ll wait until the run is over.
When my 2 pm alarm went off at about the 20-mile mark, just shy of Heartbreak Hill, I reasoned that I could wait until the finish line to take my Sinemet pill. The four-hour goal was tantalizingly close and I couldn’t afford the seconds it would take to unwrap the pill.
Within a few more minutes my legs and feet started cramping horribly and my pace slowed. Cramps late in a marathon are typical for all runners and I sometimes think that it may be worse for me because they are a common symptom of PD. In fact, I should have been thinking about this when I decided to forgo the medication. So, I took the pill and the cramps got better but they didn’t vanish.
I ended up missing my goal time by 14 minutes. Was it because I didn’t take the medication on time? I will never know. I think that my fueling was otherwise okay; I didn’t really hit a wall but the slower pace belied a potential carb deficit. I am pretty sure though that if I ever solve this cramping problem, I will be able to turn in some satisfying marathon times.
Just before the famed “right on Hereford, left on Boylston” stretch to the finish I had one of those surreal moments that I’ve come to expect from this journey. On this short stretch of Commonwealth Avenue just after crossing underneath Massachusetts Avenue, I passed Shalane Flanagan, that other person who ran all of the majors in the fall of 2021.
This may sound like a triumph for me but it wasn’t. Rather, it was an enormous triumph for Shalane. She was acting as a support runner for Adrianne Haslet who lost a leg in the bombing at the 2013 Boston Marathon and who suffered serious injury when struck by a car while training in 2018. Shalane coached Adrienne to her goal of finishing in under six hours and helped her on the course as well. These are incredible, inspirational women.
There was a big crowd at the Team Fox post-race party including the runners and all of their friends and family who came along to support them. I reconnected with some of the people I met at the pre-race dinner and met many new faces. One pleasant surprise was meeting KyAnn who lives in West Seattle very close to where I do. She and her cousin Yvonne, who has 56 marathons in her resume including all of the 50 states, will run the Berlin Marathon in September and we hope to meet up there.
Oh, right, I have more majors on my schedule this year again. More to come on that topic in my next post.
My mind was still a bit numbed by the race and so I did a sloppy job of taking down names and noting the connections amongst the people at the party. I am embarrassed by that. But that didn’t seem to bother the folks I met. Katie and my other friends at Team Fox have hyped me up as some sort of a legend and I was occupied during the whole party meeting, greeting, chatting, and exchanging contact information with a lot of folks some of whom wanted to contribute to my fall campaign (again, more on that next time). Many of them thanked me for my speech at the pre-race dinner and wanted to know more about my book.
I was so happily pre-occupied at the party that by the time it broke up at about 7 pm I realized that I hadn’t eaten anything. There was a French bistro right around the corner from my Airbnb so I decided to grab dinner there before calling it a day. At the bistro, Michael, another Team Fox runner who I met at the pre-race dinner and who skipped the post-race party, was at an outdoor table with his husband Jonathan and their friend Steven. Michael called me over and the four of us talked for another hour about Parkinson’s, marathons, my book, etc.
At 8:30 pm I was at last happy to sit down for a dinner of steak frites and profiteroles for dessert.
The next day, Tuesday, was a languid rest day for me as I recovered from the marathon and packed for my flight to San Francisco. My wife, Lynn, had driven from Seattle and would pick me up at SFO on Wednesday afternoon. We spent the next two nights in Palo Alto with our friends Dan and Evelyn before heading south on Friday for Big Sur and the second leg of this challenge.
Stay tuned.
