Running for their Lives: The story of how one man ran 52 marathons in 52 weeks to help cure leukemia!

By Karl W. Gruber

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 21, 2007
• ISBN: 9781465331809

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

The Genesis of Change

Once again, I was gliding through the early-morning mist on a backcountry road in Hocking County. The early-morning rays of sunshine finished their ninety-three-million-mile journey at my feet, as I was in the midst of my regular sunrise six-mile run. It had been only a few weeks ago that I had been in the tropical paradise of Hawaii where I had completed the 1994 Honolulu Marathon and had thoroughly fallen in love with the beauty of the islands, but at this moment, here in rural southeastern Ohio, with the incredible display of beauty being put on by the beginning of a new day, I decided that surely there may be more exotic spots on earth, but right here, right now, was the most beautiful place on the planet.

My breath spewed visibly before me in the cold February air as I charged forward running over the gravel and dirt. I felt vibrantly alive and healthy, and my mind was racing even faster. Thus was the scenario where an idea was set to change my life, and hopefully the lives of many, forever. By the time I trotted to a stop at the base of my home’s driveway on Natchez Lane in Hide-A-Way Hills, I knew what I must do, and was on fire with excitement of what I had decided to attempt to accomplish: I would run fifty-two marathons in fifty-two weeks! It wasn’t a run at a record, and it wasn’t for me. I would do it to raise one million dollars for leukemia research. Yes, I had climbed a mental mountain laden with risk, and I had made the decision that one man could really make a difference in the world!

Eight months before my world-changing decision, I dragged my tired body into my house after another tough day of writing, producing, and voicing commercials at WHOK-FM in Lancaster, Ohio, where I had worked for the past fifteen years. As usual, I had stopped at my mailbox at the front gate of Hide-A-Way Hills, and once inside, I said to myself, Oh great, just what I need, more bills. One letter, however, had the return address of the Central Ohio Leukemia Society, and I wasn’t sure why they would be sending me something. The letter inside proudly announced that the leukemia society had an organization called Team in Training, and they were looking for participants to not only train for the upcoming 1994 Honolulu Marathon, but also to raise money for leukemia research while they trained. What really caught my attention was the mention that if I successfully raised the sum of three thousand two hundred dollars, the leukemia society would pay my airfare and hotel to Hawaii and also pay my entry fee to the marathon. What a deal! I proclaimed to myself. I can use my good health and running talent to actually help someone else! This was the genesis of an idea and journey that would change the path of my life in the long run.

A few weeks later in the summer of 1994, many new running friends had been added to my list of acquaintances, and a hundred miles of Team in Training group runs had added themselves to my running shoes. I found out from the local Team in Training (TNT) director, Trish Looby, that we were all to be matched to a local leukemia patient so that we could better understand what and why we were running and fund-raising. There was a Central Ohio TNT kickoff dinner coming up, and that would be where I was to meet my patient, five-year-old Glen Miller, Jr., of Logan, Ohio.

I had a dress shirt and tie on as I walked up to the rural-looking couple looking a bit out of place in the plushness of the atrium in nationwide office building in downtown Columbus. It was Glen Miller, Sr., his wife Cathy, and their young daughter Stephanie, along with her younger brother Glen. My first thought upon meeting little Glen was that he was very healthy-looking and energetic. Does he really have leukemia? I thought. I hung with Glen and his family in between socializing with my TNT running pals, and then it was time to get our pictures taken with our patient. To this day, I see the beautiful, healthy-looking smile on little Glen’s face in that picture, as I have utilized it on a daily basis in many different ways and on many occasions.

CHAPTER 2

I Can Do This

I remember being on Interstate 70 driving by Children’s Hospital in downtown Columbus one evening and suddenly remembering that little Glen Miller (or Glen Bob, as his family called him) was still there undergoing treatment for his leukemia. He had been enduring the countless chemotherapy treatments ever since his disease had made his body take a turn for the worse. His mother and father had practically been living right there in his hospital room with him for weeks. His dad, Glen Senior, who worked a full-time job in a sawmill in southern Ohio, worked all day then made the fifty-mile trip into Columbus to be with his son. I had been in Columbus that day on other business, but I decided to stop by and see Glen, so I took the next freeway exit and headed to the hospital. It is well-known that the treatment for leukemia can seem even more rough than the disease itself, so it was a tough scene I faced when I unexpectedly entered the outer area of Glen’s sterile room, where his mom was waiting on him hand and foot. The first thing I saw was a little bald, bloated man sitting up in his bed, with a couple IVs hooked up to him, and he was in the process of losing his lunch. Certainly, it was not a pretty sight, but it immediately drove home how seriously ill this little boy was. The image of the healthy-looking, energetic little boy I had just met a few months earlier reemerged in my mind, and made me wince in pain just from watching the sick-room scene in front of me.

A few weeks later, Glen finally received the bone-marrow transplant he so desperately needed. Still, with all the research and new medicines available in the world, with a disease that is a cancer of the bone marrow, the treatment that offers an excellent chance of putting the disease in remission is a bone-marrow transplant. Since a patient needs to have an exact bone-marrow match many, many times, it is incredibly difficult to find a match, but Glen was lucky as his older sister, Stephanie, turned out to be the one to help him. A few days after the successful transplant, Glen was able to travel the fifty miles back to his family’s home on Church Street in Logan to recuperate and hopefully keep the leukemia in remission, and once again have a chance at being a healthy little boy again.

Night after night I tossed and turned in bed when I should have been sleeping, saying with the confidence of a fire burning intensely that I can do this! I can successfully run fifty-two marathons in fifty-two weeks and raise one million dollars for leukemia research! Then with the arrival of the dawn, I would lace up my running shoes and hit the road running hard, running hills, doing intervals and wind sprints, and always visualizing myself coming across the finish line of my fifty-second marathon. I saw myself holding a huge check for one million dollars above my head, and then handing it to someone from the leukemia society. It was a reality to me before I ever started, which is probably the way that most great accomplishments start and end.

I had become an ardent fan, listener, watcher, and reader of Rev. Robert Schuller, one of the world’s top proponents of Possibility Thinking, and over the course of early 1995, I had acquired a copy of his audiocassette of his book Power Thinking. Each day I listened to this fiery tape that said, If it’s going to be, it’s up to me! I had also been a fan of the Father of Positive Thinking, Norman Vincent Peale, for years before I ever heard of Robert Schuller. I knew that Positive/Possibility Thinking proposed that if you have a great goal, a great dream, you must announce it to the world. By doing so, great pressure is put on you to accomplish it, and if you have the fire, it is like putting the last bit of kindling on that fire you need. With this impetus of positive thinking from great minds, I finally decided, I’m going to do it, no matter what it takes. With my decision firmly in mind, I stopped by the home of Kristy Good, one of my best friends. Kristy is someone I am able to confide in, and I told her that I wanted to run fifty-two marathons in fifty-two weeks to raise one million dollars for leukemia research. As well as I knew Kristy, I was still surprised to hear her say, I think that is a very noble idea. I believe you can do it. They say that words have more power than a weapon, and this one sentence from a loved, trusted friend had the effect of a cannon launching me into the reality of my dream. A few days later, Kristy gave me a card that simply said on the front, Congratulations! and on the inside she had written, If anyone can do this, you can! I’m sure that she would never imagine the dozens and dozens of times I would look at those words over the months ahead and draw inspiration and confidence from them to forge ahead with my dream.

CHAPTER 3

Preparing the Dream

OK, I will be at your office four weeks from now to talk about my Run for the Cure. Thank you. I smiled as I hung up the phone as I finished my conversation with the director of a local sport-marketing company. I had rolled my huge dream over and over in my brain as to how I could accomplish it. I finally decided that the logistics and financing of such a huge undertaking was probably far more than I could successfully handle myself, so I called a professional sport-marketing company to handle it. Surely they could and would have the connections and expertise to obtain the needed sponsors and the man power and money power to make my Run for the Cure a reality and success. The meeting with the director of this sport-marketing company was four weeks away, and believe me, until then, each day seemed like a week to me. When the day finally arrived, I traveled the fifty miles to their office on the far northwest side of Columbus, and I ventured into the inner sanctum. I had on a suit and tie, which was far out of my norm, especially having been in the casual atmosphere of the radio broadcasting industry for almost two decades. I met with the director, who, it became readily apparent, was perhaps one of the most brusque, nervous, intense, and totally lacking of any type of cordiality individuals I had ever met. In the course of our luncheon date, and despite his obvious lack of confidence in my dream, he stated that if he could make money in it, he would back me. Here was an individual and an organization that had the professional connections and contacts that could possibly make my dream a reality telling me they could help make it possible. Despite the obvious incredulousness and coarseness of this man, as I left the clubhouse restaurant, tears started to well up from my eyes, as I knew in my heart that my dream was really starting to take shape and was really going to become a reality! I flew back to work at WHOK-FM in Lancaster, where I worked with my friend Kristy, who was the promotions director, pulled her into her office, and slammed the door. I’m sure to this day Kristy thinks I was completely out of my mind. In a suit and tie, I jumped up and down like a madman yelling, It’s going to happen! It’s going to really happen! I was beside myself with excitement and Kristy congratulated me despite her astonishment. Little did I know how much longer the dream would take to start becoming a reality.

My intention was to start my fifty-two marathons with the November 1995 Columbus, Ohio, Marathon—my home marathon. As the months of summer and fall progressed, I would call the elusive director of the sport-marketing company, and he would occasionally assure me that he would secure the needed sponsorship, and that I would indeed be able to start with the upcoming Columbus Marathon. I had even secured the services of a lawyer to help draw up a contract between the sport-marketing company and myself. Finally, despite assurances from the director that I would be able to begin my journey in November 1995, the date of the Columbus Marathon came and went, and I sat in my home in Hide-A-Way Hills burning with the desire to run for the cure.

Following the 1995 Columbus Marathon and the intended start of my Super Run, the days and weeks blended one into the other. My frustration percolated as my mind began to race for ideas on how I could actually make my Super Run become a reality and how and when I could finally get started. Meanwhile, in Logan, Ohio, where little Glen had returned to his family home after having his bone-marrow transplant a few weeks before, things weren’t playing out as successfully as hoped. I spoke to his mother, Cathy, on the phone one day, and she told me that Glen had to return to Children’s Hospital, as he had suddenly had a relapse of the persistent leukemia that racked his small body. The bone-marrow transplant had not worked. Back to the sterile environment of the hospital he went. His small bloated body with his bald head once again endured the pain of IVs, drugs, and chemotherapy treatments. Within a matter of a few days, it became apparent that Glen may not make it this time.

The last time I saw Glen was in the oncology department of Children’s Hospital. Because there did not seem to be any hope of a cure for him, he had returned home to Logan with his family, but he still had to come to the hospital a couple times a week for treatment. I knew that he was a big fan of the Ohio State University Buckeye football team, so I had arranged to have a couple of the players come to the hospital on this day to visit Glen and hopefully lift his spirits. The two big athletes arrived and presented Glen with an autographed hat from their coach, John Cooper, and then proceeded to autograph Glen’s shirt and pose for photos with him. Glen was very, very quiet, but I do believe he enjoyed the visit. It was the last time I saw him, and it left me somewhat depressed, as I could see it was a hopeless fight. A number of days later, Cathy called and told me Glen had passed away during the night. He had his whole family and friends around his beside throughout his last night and was nearly comatose. She told me that he literally came out of a coma, and became clear-minded, and spoke to each one there telling them he loved them. After this incredible moment of clarity, Glen, as his mom told him, Go to Jesus, baby, followed her orders.

After Glen’s death in December 1995, I continued to burn with the hot fire of desire knowing that I could accomplish this! I could run fifty-two marathons in fifty-two weeks! I could raise one million dollars for leukemia research! Without having to look at the card that Kristy had given me, the words engraved in my brain, if anyone can do this, it’s you! I tossed and turned every night. My dog would wake up and look at me strangely when at 3:00 AM I would say out loud with the focus and intensity of a laser, I can do this!

In late December 1995, at last I finally came to the decision to start the ball rolling myself to turn my Super Run for the Cure into reality. I knew it was such a huge job that it was going to be incredibly difficult to do it myself, but I had already had the idea, the dream, for almost an entire year, and yet I was really no closer to starting. It was simply time to do it. Daily as I went to my job as production director at K-95, I started looking up names and addresses of potential sponsors, both individual and corporate. I put together proposals, I faxed, I made phone calls, and then some more phone calls. My training became more focused than ever before! I had been a runner for fifteen years and was always in decent shape, but now I was not only doing my usual long runs, I was also doing track sessions, interval work, lifting weights. And for the first time in my life, I was even doing aerobics! I knew I was in top shape when a longtime friend of mine, who was very physically fit himself said, Man, you are ripped! which is a bodybuilder’s term for being lean and muscular with low body fat content. So while I fine-tuned my body for the brutal yearlong beating it would take, I faxed and mailed out hundreds of proposals for sponsors. By sheer number and volume, I was bound to get something or someone to come on board the Super Run express. Finally, I received a phone call from Julie Scully at PowerFood, Inc., in Berkeley, California, the makers of a sports energy bar called PowerBar. They had established a fabulous way to support and sponsor a cross section of athletes from a wide spectrum of sports called Team Elite. PowerBar had decided to make me a member of this special group of athletes and this meant that as my year of marathoning progressed, each time I received media coverage and their name or logo was either seen