A reason to run
|
|
Toolbox
By Tom Haley Staff Writer - Published: May 30, 2005
BURLINGTON — Sunday's Vermont City Marathon was intensely personal to Rich Haskell, an on-air personality at Waterbury radio station WDEV, and to Binghamton University employee Lisa Gallagher.
Haskell was running a relay leg for Team In Training, a result of his daughter Miranda being diagnosed with leukemia at the age of 5 in 2000.
Miranda is fine now, but Haskell continues to run under the Team in Training umbrella in marathons to bring attention to the disease. Team in Training is a program of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of America.
Gallagher's father had a recurrence of lymphoma and died last year. He is the reason she runs under the Team In Training banner.
"It's a great organization," Gallagher said.
She raised about $2,000 in pledges for it through running in the Vermont City Marathon.
On Sunday, Haskell only ran a leg of the relay with a team because he will run a marathon in its entirety on June 18 when he travels to Anchorage, Alaska to participate in the Mayor's Midnight Sun Marathon.
It was the diagnosis of Miranda that moved him to become a runner.
"A few years ago I had no intentions of running," Haskell said in Burlington's Battery Park early Sunday morning, awaiting the start of the event.
The moment of the diagnosis is still very much with him.
"We didn't know what was up. We thought it was a death sentence," he recalled.
The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society will pay his expenses to Alaska, but he must raise $4,500 in turn.
When Miranda was in her hospital room shortly after being diagnosed, she received a visit from University of Vermont sports information director Gordon Woodworth, who had been a leukemia patient himself.
"He has been quite an inspiration," Rich said.
Haskell has run two marathons in San Diego, one in Portland, Ore., and another in Phoenix, raising money for the cause.
Gallagher, too, has run other marathons for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
"This was my fourth marathon and this is the best one. The support here is incredible," she said.
Haskell and Gallagher are runners you'll find somewhere in the pack without a sniff of the $16,750 prize money. These are some of the best stories of all at the Vermont City Marathon.
Their names might not be announced and their progress out on the course won't be charted and relayed to the public the way it is for the elite and contending runners.
But their stories are among the most inspirational.
They are stories you can find anywhere. They are in the studios of WDEV or within the walls of Binghamton University.
… Or in an office on Stratton Road in Rutland. Growth charts, immunizations, colic and cradle cap. That's the language spoken at Pediatric Associaties.
But there's another language spoken in the offices of this bustling practice: Nike, carbohydrate loading, and training runs.
Doctors David Schneider and Katharine Hession were among those participating in Sunday's marathon.
There are the elite runners who are well supplied by sponsors, affording them time to train. Running is their livelihood, or at least a major slice of it.
Much more typical of the 7,000 or so in Sunday's field are the Pediatric Associates doctors who must creatively juggle intense work schedules just to get in a training run each day.
"It's hard with a full schedule and a family," Schneider said. "It's difficult but you get efficient and learn to squeeze in runs.
"I tried running at 5 or 6 a.m., but I'm not a morning person. My body didn't like that. Sometimes, I get to go into work later in the day and can run at a more reasonable time in the morning."
Typically, he'll have to squeeze a training run between seeing patients and attending a meeting.
There's also the chance his run will be interrupted when he's out on the road with his pager.
Schneider ran the entire marathon himself. Hession was part of a relay team called the Towle Road Runners, Towle being her maiden name.
Hession sees wedging running into the whirlwind schedule of their practice as simply making it important enough.
"You make time for what you really want to do," she said. "Running has been a hobby of mine for about 25 years and it's something I love to do. As a result, there are a lot of other things I don't do."
Pediatric Associations is like a mini running club. There are actually four physicians in the building who are active runners as Dr. Robert Hession, Katharine's husband, and Dr. Stephen Wood also train and race.
And they derive benefits worth much more than the $2,500 earned by the top male and female finishers.
One thing running allows them to do is relate to their patients, many who are on cross-country or track teams or simply use running to train for other sports.
"It helps very, very much with my patients, especially since I am studying a lot of sports medicine for my own benefit," Schneider said. "It's very helpful in dealing with the teenage athletes in the community.
"It also helps with the inactive people and getting them to be active."
"It can be helpful in relating to them about injuries," Katharine Hession said. "When I begin talking to them, their eyes will light up and you can see their saying, 'she really knows what she's talking about.'"
Having four doctors running in the same office also fosters a camaraderie. Robert Hession and Schneider, for example, trained together when they did their first VCM in 1999.
"We really helped motivate each other," Schneider said.
Schneider had an outstanding marathon Sunday, bouncing back from what he considered a poor marathon in Boston just over a month ago. Unofficially, he clocked about 3:11 at the VCM.
Katharine Hession also realized a goal on Sunday. Running the last leg for the Towle Road Runners, she helped the team clock a 3:36.01, taking three minutes off their previous best time set in 2003.
She had said before the race that was the team's goal.
"It's fun to have a goal," Katharine said. "But the most important thing is getting together with family and friends. Now, we'll all go out and celebrate our success."
Family, friends and associates is another thing that brings the doctors back to the VCM. It is the reason Schneider decided to run in the event even though the recovery time is so short following the Boston Marathon.
"It's only five or six weeks to recover. But this is absolutely my favorite one," said Schneider, a veteran of about 20 marathons. "It's why I keep coming back even though it is so close to Boston.
"The support is great on the course. It's almost a party. Not a year goes by when I don't see people I know. It's personal, this is our home race. It's a wonderful atmosphere. It's a beautiful course and a very fair course."
Schneider sees another benefit. When you see patients day after day, you can come across some pretty serious problems. Running serves as an outlet.
"It's a wonderful head clearing activity," Schneider said.
Middlebury's Steve Hare knows all about that. Hare, who ran on a relay team Sunday, makes some of his best business decisions when he's out on a run.
The proprietor of Vermont Sun Fitness in Middlebury made one while out on a training run not so long ago. It was to open up another fitness center in downtown West Palm Beach, Fla.
"I did that while out on a run one night. That was classic," Hare said.
Haskell does not pretend to be a great marathoner.
"I'm a five-hour guy. I look at a lot of people's backs," he said while preparing to contribute to his relay team Run Free or Die.
Yet, he gets up early every morning and heads either for the treadmill or bike path to train before taking his shift on WDEV.
"There's something to be said for doing something that takes so much hard work," Haskell said.
Why not? Being a "five-hour guy" puts him smack dab in the middle of some of the best stories of all.
Contact Tom Haley at tom.haley@rutlandherald.com
40