What if Michael Jordan had never picked up a basketball or Tiger Woods had never picked up a golf club? What if J.K. Rowling had never picked up a book? What if someone I knew never forced me to lace up a pair of running shoes? Being that it’s #cfawarenessmonth and we could all use an inspirational story during this pandemic, I wanted to share the story of how I learned to run for my life.
As a fourth grader, I couldn’t finish a single lap due to the fact that I let a cystic fibrosis (CF) diagnosis ruin my life. Earlier that year, I’d read in an encyclopedia that I was not supposed to reach the age of 25. I knew how bad my lungs were already and how much worse they were only going to get. My mom obliged by writing notes to excuse me from participating so I didn’t have to try to compete with my classmates in PE (Physical Education class). I was always embarrassed to just sit there and watch as my peers easily ran laps around the indoor gymnasium. Each time I tried to emulate them I failed due to my lack of stamina. I just assumed that having cystic fibrosis was the reason I would never succeed in running. At first, I was upset by this but eventually something even worse happened – I accepted it.
While I was trying to figure out how to run a lap in gym class, my Uncle Bobby was busy conquering race after race and receiving commemorative shirts and hard-fought medals. Not only had he run the 10 kilometer Peachtree Road Race several times, but he had also conquered the San Francisco, Grandma’s (Duluth, Minnesota) and New York City Marathons. I was always fascinated with all of his race shirts and medals and asked what it was like to run.
My parents, my Aunt Susie (my mom’s sister) and Uncle Bobby knew I had an interest in running and that this activity could drastically improve my lung function. They discussed what needed to be done. In stepped Uncle Bobby. His coaching skills were not for the thin-skinned. He was a former head football coach at the Georgia School for the Deaf state residential high school who got into running at the age of 30 because his players told him he was out of shape. Boy did he show them! Bobby ended up taking the team on bus rides to run 5 kilometer races on the weekends. The entire team got into great shape.
Bobby made fun of me when I couldn’t do something and pushed me to better myself. I had never had this sort of instructor. No adult had ever made fun of me for having cystic fibrosis. It was almost taboo. The thing was though that he wasn’t making fun of me for “having” cystic fibrosis. He was ridiculing me for how I was “handling” having cystic fibrosis. After a while he started to annoy me but that level of frustration created something in me that was somewhat new – desire! I wanted to prove him wrong. I wanted to prove my classmates wrong. I wanted to prove cystic fibrosis wrong!
I slowly went from not being able to run a mile to running two, three and even four miles. I went from sitting on my butt on the weekends to running 3k and 5k races with my uncle and amassing my own collection of shirts. That hard work translated into success at school, too. I went from not completing laps and many times not even competing with my classmates to finishing amongst my top three peers and winning the most improved fourth grade athlete at Mt. Vernon Presbyterian School in the 1982-1983 school year. That award took on a lot of personal meaning for me. I didn’t feel like an outsider anymore because of cystic fibrosis. I knew that anything was feasible if I put in the work.
Running has definitely changed my life. Who am I kidding? It probably saved it too. The last few decades as I’ve gotten back into running I’ve seen my perspective on CF change. I used to see running as a way to try and escape cystic fibrosis. Now I don’t worry as much about CF chasing me. I worry about chasing my own dreams.
These days, I’m able to run three to five miles a day and run between 25 to 30 miles a week. I’ve run the legendary Peachtree Road Race 23 consecutive years. My lung function has exploded from seventy and eighty percentile in my thirties to miraculously ninety-five percentile in my forties. I credit Trikafta, the new CF breakthrough drug, for assisting my lungs but I’d be remiss if I didn’t also credit running for keeping me strong enough to benefit from this drug.
Bobby earned three degrees all from Georgia State where he taught sign language to undergraduates and graduates who were going into speech therapy and deaf education for the last 10 years of his career. He has since moved to Florida and retired after running the Peachtree Road Race an incredible 35 consecutive years from 1978 to 2012. My goal is to run at least thirteen more consecutive races to break his family record. I’m very proud that at least one of us has run this race for the last 42 years!
I owe Uncle Bobby a debt of gratitude for taking a chance on a 10-year old boy with cystic fibrosis and helping him to do something that most people were not sure that he could do.
He taught me how to run for my life, and that’s exactly what I will continue to do.
Live your dreams and love your life!
Andy