The Man Who Ran 50 Marathons After Losing His Legs

The Boston morning was sharp and cold, the kind that makes your breath catch. Runners stretched and jogged in place, their bibs fluttering like flags. I sat still in my racing wheelchair, gloves snug, eyes shut, feeling the hum of the crowd. This was my fiftieth marathon. Fifty. The number felt heavy, like a stone I’d carried across every finish line. But it wasn’t the number that mattered. It was the fact that I was here at all, racing with no legs, chasing a dream I thought I’d buried years ago.
I used to live for running. Back in college, I’d lace up my sneakers and hit the open road, chasing faster times like they were promises. The rhythm of my feet, the burn in my lungs it was my heartbeat. Until one rainy night stole it all. A truck. A flash of light. A scream of tires. Then, nothing. I woke up in a hospital bed, my mom’s face crumpled with tears. I followed her gaze to the flat sheet where my legs should’ve been. The world I knew ended right there.
Those first months were a haze of pain and pills. I’d lie awake, staring at the ceiling, feeling like someone had carved out my soul. Running was gone. The thing that made me me was gone. Friends came by, their voices soft, their eyes avoiding the empty space below my waist. Doctors talked about recovery. Therapists pushed me to “process.” But grief was a fog I couldn’t outrun.
One sleepless night, I found myself scrolling online, numb, until a video stopped me cold. A double-amputee racer in the Paralympics, arms pumping, face fierce, crossing the finish line to a roaring crowd. I watched it on loop, my heart stuttering. For the first time in months, I felt something other than emptiness a tiny spark of maybe.
The next day, I wheeled into my therapist’s office. “I want to race,” I said. She looked at me, startled. “You mean… run again?”
“No,” I said, my voice steady for the first time in forever. “I want to race. Differently.”
Learning to use a racing wheelchair was humbling. It looked sleek, simple, but it fought me. Blisters bloomed on my hands. My arms burned. I tipped over more times than I could count, cursing on quiet streets as neighbors peeked out their windows. But every crash, every wobble, was proof I was moving. Not just my body my spirit. I was clawing my way back to life.
My first marathon was in New York. Standing at the starting line, I felt alive again. Around me were people who’d survived wars, accidents, diseases each of us carrying scars, each of us burning with the same fire. The gun cracked, and I pushed. Hard. Every hill was a war, every gust of wind a slap. My arms screamed, but my heart was louder. When I crossed the finish line, tears blurred the crowd. I wasn’t just a guy who’d lost his legs. I was a racer again.
One race became five. Five became twenty. By my fiftieth, I was a familiar face on the circuit, my name on signs bobbing in the crowd: “Go Alex!” “50 and Unstoppable!” But the moment that stays with me from that Boston race wasn’t the finish. It was at the halfway mark, when I saw a kid in the crowd, maybe ten years old, his legs in casts, sitting in a wheelchair. His eyes locked on mine, wide and wondering. I slowed, leaned over, and gave him a fist bump. “You can do anything,” I said. His smile was brighter than any medal. That moment it felt like handing him the spark I’d found all those years ago.
People ask me why I keep racing. I just smile and say, “Because I can.” It’s not about proving something. It’s gratitude. Losing my legs shattered the life I planned, but it gave me one I never dreamed of a life where every mile is a middle finger to despair, where limits are just the starting line.
Now, I work with rehab centers, teaching others with disabilities how to race, how to move, how to dream again. I call it “Heartbeat Miles,” because it’s not about wheels or legs. It’s about the rhythm of wanting something and going for it, no matter what. My walls are covered with medals, each one a memory of a day I refused to give up. They’re not just metal they’re proof that tragedy can take your legs, your plans, your comfort, but it can’t take your fight.
At the start of every race, I tell the new racers the same thing: “We don’t just race for the miles. We race for the life in between.” And when I push off, wheels spinning, heart pounding, I’m not just racing for me. I’m racing for that kid in the crowd, for the man I used to be, and for every single one of us who’s ever had to start again.