Triumph of the spirit, triumph of the heart
Triumph of the spirit, triumph of the heart
Posted By CHERYL CLOCK , STANDARD STAFF
I thought this story was a wonderful touching story. You do what you need to do to stay healthy! And...Yes you can turn your life around and remain in control, making your life it's best!
For all of you who have down days running, don't ever give up! You might just have to put the watch away, so that you are still having fun and not pushing yourself beyond what you can't do.
Here is the story...
They wanted to cross the finish line together. Hand-in-hand. Arms raised to the sky in victory.
No matter what happened along the 21-kilometre route, they would end it together. As a team. Stronger for the experience.
If someone had to walk, they would walk it together. If someone couldn't walk, which was pretty unlikely, one would carry the other.
That was their plan.
So, one sunny Saturday the last weekend in May, 46-year-old John Dunn and 39-year-old Michelle MacIntosh, partners in running and in life, ran the Ottawa half-marathon.
Not to win, mind you. Not even to achieve a personal best time.
The St. Catharines couple ran, instead, to conquer fears. To take a risk. And to show everyone that they were choosing to live life with passion.
For John, the run represented a journey to closure. An end to recovery. A beginning to being healthy once again.
The night before the race, Michelle took out a black marker and wrote these words on the back of John's green T-shirt.
Nov. 1st/08 = DEAD May 24th/09 = Ottawa 1/2
"I wanted to honour his journey," says Michelle.
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"I'm so proud of John." Six months ago John was, for all intents and purposes, dead.
It was Halloween night 2008. He played hockey, came home, watched some TV in bed to find out the latest scores, then drifted off to sleep. That's all he remembers. Around 3:15 a. m., for reasons doctors can't explain, John's heart stopped beating. Cardiac arrest.
John was healthy. Fit. He'd been a volunteer firefighter. He and Michelle led clinics at the Runner's Edge on Fourth Avenue. Every Tuesday and Thursday, 10 kilometres. Longer runs on the weekend. And beginner groups too.
Michelle woke up. She called 911, then started cardio-pulmonary resuscitation. CPR. She pushed down on his chest, squeezing his heart and pushing oxygenated blood to parts of his body, like his brain, that needed it the most.
Paramedics arrived. His heart was in ventricular fibrillation, shaking like a bowl of Jello. They shocked him with a defibrillator. His heart began to beat on its own again.
A defibrillator is now implanted in his chest. If it ever stops beating again, the device will shock his heart.
Just before Christmas, still healing from the surgery, John and Michelle started running together again.
One kilometre. Then two. Then five.
So when they decided to run the half marathon, they knew they would run it together. Side by side. No matter what.
And for over 20 kilometres, everything went as planned.
They kept a good pace, stopping only to quench their thirst at water stations.
After more than two hours of running, they were less than a kilometre from the finish line. They could feel it. Hear it. The din from the crowd was deafening. Awesome. People were ringing cow bells. Yelling. Clapping. Both sides of the road were lined with bleachers of people.
They had just 250 metres to go.
Then something happened.
John turned to Michelle. He was barely audible above the cheering crowd.
"I'm done," he says.
He couldn't go any further.
John remembers the phone call at work. Jan. 9, 2009. It was Michelle.
"Guess what?" she says. "We're running the Ottawa half marathon."
John paused only momentarily.
"OK, let's do it."
It wasn't really a question. Michelle had already signed them up and booked the hotel room.
At that point, John was running about five kilometres. "It felt good to feel my heart pump," he says.
They took it slow. Gradually increased the distance. The pace.
But Michelle sensed apprehension. Their runner friends noticed it too.
"As much as we'd chosen not to live in fear, there's that little bit in the back of your head," says John.
"In the back of my mind was how hard can I push myself?"
They needed a challenge. A running event they could accomplish together that would signify the end to any lingering fears.
Michelle is a leadership and life coach in private practice. She encourages her clients to face their fears. To take risks. She tells them to be active participants in life. To be involved. Engaged.
"Building a great life is something you do actively," she says.
So, she listened to her own advice.
Admittedly, there had been a lot of upheaval in their lives.
John's cardiac arrest. A job change for Michelle who was in the process of starting her own practice after working for eight years at Baylis and Associates (now called Human Solutions).
And a marriage proposal.
It was Christmas morning. Michelle thought the tiny box under the tree held a pair of earrings.
It was a ring.
John was already kneeling. He'd been handing out gifts. Their three children watched. All he could choke out was, "So, will you ...?"
Michelle said yes. Then broke into tears as well.
They will marry this month, and honeymoon with the kids at Disney World.
Race day. May 24, 2009. John is relaxed. Giddy. Ready to run.
They are just two runners in a crowd that numbers about 10,000. A sea of humanity.
Michelle has run half and full marathons before. She did the Ottawa half marathon a few years back.
This is John's first. Before the cardiac arrest, the most he'd ever run was about 15 kilometres. Preparing for the Ottawa run, he did 18 kilometres a couple weeks prior.
"It felt like it was just going to be another long run," he says.
John is not wearing a watch. Time is not important. "To me, it wasn't about the time," he says.
"It was about Michelle and I completing it together."
They are well back from the start line. The road is so congested with runners, it takes them about eight minutes of shuffling forward just to reach the start line.
Then it begins.
"The first few kilometres were magical," says John.
They run past the parliamentary buildings. The Peace Tower. The Supreme Court of Canada. They even cross provincial lines and run in Gatineau, Que.
Runners coming up from behind notice Michelle's message on the back of his shirt. They yell out, "I love your shirt. Congratulations."
Others have more time. They ask, "What happened? We're you really dead?" They run with John and Michelle, listening to their story, then move on.
Says Michelle: "We're so much better off when we can share that positive energy. "It's powerful."
At 16 kilometres, John is tired. The weather has turned from comfortably warm to hot. And he is hungry.
John feels himself starting to fade.
But the crowd won't let him. His first name is printed on his runner's bib.
"Keep going, John," someone yells.
"You're almost there" "Way to go, John." "You're looking good."
He feeds on their energy. Keeps running through those last five kilometres.
Then, the last 250 metres.
Mere steps to the finish. And all John wants to do is slip off to the side, past the crowds. Past the noise. And finish quietly.
"It was so overwhelming," he says. "I had everything going through my head.
"It was like a movie clip of the last six months."
The cardiac arrest. The hospital. Surgery. Tests.
More trips to the hospital. Recovering from the surgery.
Returning as a manager at the downtown branch of the St. Catharines Public Library.
Taking the bus to work every day because he wasn't allowed to drive for six months.
Returning to hockey. To running. To driving. Michelle. The kids.
"I just wanted to turn the volume down," he says.
That's about when he turns to Michelle and tells her, "I'm done."
But she knows him better. "Oh no, you're not," she says.
He can barely hear Michelle over the roar of the crowd.
"You're not going to walk," she tells John. "You've run too far to start walking now."
They're at 100 metres.
Michelle grabs his hand. "I felt her energy," says John.
Then, the finish line.
They cross it, two hours and 22 minutes after their race began. Together. Hand-in-hand. Arms raised to the sky in victory. As planned.
They collapse into each other's arms. Cry. Hug. They tell each other how much they're in love.
Then Michelle turns to John and tells him: "Thanks for staying around to run this with me."
