At 57 years old, Dr. Thomas McCarty ran his first mile. Now 73, he’s heading back to the Boston Marathon.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - At 57 years old, Dr. Thomas McCarty ran his first mile. Now 73, he’s heading back to the Boston Marathon . The Anchorage audiologist’s journey is a story about resilience, loss, and the belief that it’s never too late to change.
After McCarty’s first mile, he thought he could go further, “so I did a 5K. And then I said, maybe I could do 26 miles,” McCarty said.McCarty first ran Boston in 2012. His second year would be one no runner there will ever forget. In 2013, he was near the top of Heartbreak Hill when race officials stopped the course. McCarty said two bombs had exploded near the finish line, where McCarty’s family had planned to meet him. “I had no idea if they were hurt or dead or alive,” he said. “I had to wait for the cell phones to turn back on.” His family was unharmed. On the bus ride back into the city, another runner asked if he’d come back the following year. “I said, absolutely. I’m not going to let a couple of terrorists stop me,” McCarty said. “I’ll be back. This isn’t going to stop.”He did come back — every year since. McCarty has run as part of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute team, raising money for cancer research. The cause is personal. McCarty said his brother-in-law died of colon cancer and his father has battled prostate cancer. “It’s just a small way I can do something,” he said. “Help raise funds and maybe they’ll come up with a cure.”At 73, McCarty isn’t slowing down. He’s been training on Anchorage’s bike trails — sometimes on glare ice with studded running shoes — and plans to complete a full 26-mile training run before race day. “All things are possible,” he said. “Nobody believed me when I said I’d run Boston. They just laughed. But they’re not laughing now.”‘Every fiber of me wishes I could change it all’: Veteran musher posts tribute to dog who died during IditarodTwo killed in ‘confined space’ aboard tug boat near Ketchikan, Coast Guard reportsFilling empty bowls: Bean’s Café aims to provide additional 5,000 meals in upcoming monthsAnchorage police investigating ‘suspicious’ death in Muldoon neighborhood
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