Ryan Shaw

I followed this guy's running career, I think mainly because he had a body type that was different than a lot of runners. He was strong and athletic. He was an elite runner and potentially an Olympic Qualifier. He died on Saturday at the Olympic Qualifier marathon in NYC after 5.5 miles. He was 28.



I still can't believe it, a guy dying at the Chicago marathon who did not train properly and with a heart ailment I get to a certain point. An elite marathoner I don't get. Part of the reason my training was off was due to his death. I couldn't get it out of my head that an elite marathoner died, what could happen to me.

What people don't realize about most endurance runners is that they are typically a highly motivated type of person. They can withstand pain, doubt, the devil on your shoulder telling you to pack it because its icy and cold and 99% of the rest of the world including your wife are snuggled up warmly in their beds. Its a lot to overcome mentally at least relative to individual sport. But daily I overcome it as other marathoners do, now almost without any thought (especially since I treadmill train a lot). There was a motto I developed with my running partner Pat during his first marathon. When he would talk of quitting. I would just say "just block everything out, and just put one foot in fron of the other". This is something that I would go on to repeat to myself when I started training on my own "just put one foot in front of the other".

But an elite runner dying, What about me... I have so much to live for now....this thought crept in and it affected my running confidence. Throw in that I had the worst cold in my life during the last two weeks of November and the first two weeks of December plus having to adjust to slightly different sleeping schedule, all of this self-doubt due to Shaw's death and my focus on my training was not there, my desire to run but mostly but desire to endure and the joy I got from that was gone.

The benefits of running and training for a marathon are huge. I know. 500,000 people finish a marathon each year, even more finish smaller, faster more intense races. People of all shapes and sizes. I tried telling myself this. Then I saw a documentary on Nova following a group of people who were out of shape, providing them with a trainer and seeing if they could finish a marathon. One of the guys had a heartattack when he was younger. The Dr. said some words that stuck with me...."running was the best thing that he could do for his heart". My illogical reasoning was gone.

Things happen, but running didn't kill Ryan Shaw, something physiologically went wrong. That could happen to anyone, its extremely rare but it could happen...at anytime. There is much, much more risk from not running. Think about it, 2 people died this year while running a marathon. One did not train properly and had a heart ailment and the weather was extremely hot, the other was one of the worlds best who had something physiologically freakish happen. How many people died from heart disease, heart attacks or diseases from poor diet or obesity?

Running is something that I love to do, it defines part of who I am. I have done it since I was 11 years old. So, I laced the shoes back up and started running again the last week of December and the self-doubt was gone, my running confidence was back and I just put one foot in front of the other.