Akron, Ohio -- Summer 2011. Twenty adults, fifteen of whom have had heart surgery as well as several family members, friends, and supporters from nine states will be meeting in Akron, Ohio to run a second time in the Road Runner Akron Marathon and Team Relay on Saturday, September 24, 2011. The group has three relay teams, four half marathoners, and two full marathon runners entered in the race. Many of the runners initially met through the internet support groups www.cardiacathletes.org and www.valvereplacement.org. The Ohio based non profit H.E.A.R.T. organizes heart patient runners from these support groups and other groups, bringing them all together to run in races throughout the USA.
This year's event marks the group's sixth consecutive year of helping fellow heart patient athletes of all ability levels celebrate their recovery from heart surgery and trade experiences about what it's like to endure and recover both psychologically and physiologically from a life-threatening heart condition. These events have proven to be equally as important to the heart patients' spouses and families who also find lots of support for what they have been through and for their own inevitable worries during the weekend long gathering.
The idea began in 2006 when Mark Siwik, a lawyer and business consultant from Broadview Heights, Ohio and Paul Hobbs, a structural engineer from Burlington, Vermont, organized a five person heart patient relay team to participate in the KeyBank Vermont City Marathon on May 28, 2006. In 2007 the group fielded two relay teams for their first running of the Road Runner Akron Marathon and Team Relay. In subsequent years the group continued to attract more "runners with heart" as they ran in the New Jersey Marathon and Team Relay, The Wineglass Marathon and Team Relay, and The Harrisburg Marathon and Team Relay. In 2010 the group incorporated and registered the non profit H.E.A.R.T. in the state of Ohio as a way to carry on the vision and to manage the financial aspects of organizing these events. H.E.A.R.T's mission is to continue to recruit and organize heart patient runners from support groups and cardiac rehab programs while working to promote the idea that athletic training beyond basic fitness levels can make a huge difference in many heart patient's long term survival as well as maximizing their quality of life.
The group is especially thankful to be sponsored by the Cleveland Clinic this year. Not only has the Clinic provided generous financial backing for the group's race shirts, it is also hosting a special tour of the Cleveland Clinic Heart and Vascular Institute for our participants on Friday. With several of our runners having had their surgeries at the Clinic and all of them profoundly changed by their experience, it promises to be a very interesting tour.
H.E.A.R.T.'s organizing efforts this year are led by Mike Nall, Dave Tuttle and Jeff Hardisty. Mike is from Mentor, Ohio and had an angioplasty and stent placed after a MI in July of 2000. Mike joined the group in 2007 and has had a major role in the growth and management of the organization ever since. Mike became a much more serious runner after his event. He enters several trail runs and many other races of varying distances every year. Mike laughs as he says "I go back to my cardiologist once a year for a stress test & so he can remind me I have something wrong with me". Mike has participated in several educational dvd's produced by Milner-Fenwick in conjunction with the Cleveland Clinic dealing with heart attacks. He was filmed running and the producers were somewhat surprised that the medical advisors allowed that to be shown, given, as they put it, that running was such a restricted activity for heart patients.
Dave, a 59 year old runner from Friendship, New York, took up marathon running after quadruple bypass at age 46. Dave joined the group in 2007 through "Cardiac Athletes," an internet support group started by Lars Andrews, Dave says "for years I thought I was the only one out there running with a heart problem. It's meant the world to me to connect with other heart patients who have overcome their fears and learned how to get out there and run safely."
Jeff, from Eugene Oregon ran the Seattle Marathon seven months after a triple bypass in April 2005. He is now a certified personal trainer and his accomplishments since surgery include several Ironman Triathlons.
The 2011 band of runners also include Robert Klempay from Austintown, Ohio who will never forget January 11, 2005. "I was 47 years old and waking up in the cardiovascular intensive care unit following an emergency quadruple coronary bypass surgery. I was wondering how my life was going to change from this point on. The nurses in the cardiac cath lab had told me how fortunate I was to have my medical condition nicknamed 'The Widow Maker' caught just in time. A few years ago while surfing the internet, I found a web site called Cardiac Athletes which hooked me in with much interest. I found a group of people who had gone through similar cardiac issues and wanted to find out if I could get back to doing physically active things such as running. I am 53 years old now and have been training this past six months to run the full marathon distance of 26.2 miles. I have heard of the challenge Akron has with a few hills but I am going to give it my best"
Local runner Rick Strong is another veteran member of the group but he will not be running with his "heart buddies" this year. Instead he has volunteered to act as a co-chair person of the relay exchange zone committee for this year's Akron Roadrunner Marathon. Like most in the group Rick feels the need to give something back and understandably so. On June 4, 2009, he started play in a USTA tennis match just as he had a hundred other times in recent years. But halfway through the first set, he felt unusually short of breath and told his teammate he needed to take a bit of extra time between games. He reached down for his water bottle and the next thing he saw was a circle of faces of the Rocky River Fire Department. He had just been shocked twice with a defibrillator which restarted his heart after 12 minutes of what is medically termed as sudden cardiac death. Lucky for Rick, a cardiologist was playing for the other team, and he immediately started aggressive cpr. He was assisted by a pediatric intensive care doctor who had just finished a match. That night, after tests by the doctor that had saved his life, Rick underwent emergency cardiac bypass surgery.
Today, Rick is not only back to playing tennis, but he also competes in duathlons (biking and running). Rick was a trial attorney for 25 years and ironically, defending the medical profession, had handled many emergency and cardiology cases. He is now a legal writing professor at the University of Akron School of Law. Another point of interest is that Rick has adopted a plant based diet under the advice of Cleveland Clinic surgeon, Caldwell Esselstyn (who also advises Bill Clinton). .
While all the runners feel uncomfortable being told that their story is heroic or inspirational, they draw strength from each other's example and freely offer their encouragement and support to all who have been diagnosed with or are recovering from a heart problem. They also hope that more people realize that they can take control of their own health, thereby increasing their quality of life and reducing society's health care costs.
According to Amy Verstappen of the Adult Congenital Heart Association (www.achaheart.org), heart defects are the most common birth defect. About one in 120 babies are born with some kind of heart defect. All survivors of heart surgery have an increased risk of developing additional heart problems and many will require additional surgeries as they age. The United States has a severe shortage of cardiac centers fully equipped to care for children and adults living with complex heart defects and is in need of a national patient registry which can be used to improve existing guidelines for medical treatment and teaching heart patients how to maintain an active lifestyle.
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