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Fulfilling the dream: Completing the New York Marathon 20 years after Meningitis
31-year-old Stuart Lee always wanted to run the New York Marathon. Here he tells his story...
The New York Marathon has been something I have wanted to do for 20 years after seeing it on the TV whilst lying in a hospital bed at the age of 12. Those dark days in 1989 almost saw my life slip away following five major brain operations and bacterial meningitis.Having been born with Hydrocephalus, more commonly known as fluid on the brain, in the first 18 years of my life I had 17 brain operations, a golf ball sized brain tumour and meningitis. My Hydrocephalus is caused by a brain cyst I have had since birth, which is now the size of a tennis ball.
For me, competing in a race, any race was always going to be a challenge. At school I could not play contact sports or any sport which had the potential to cause a head injury. That pretty much ruled out everything, especially since the school had no swimming pool, so running became a sort of passion. That passion was taken from me again at the age of 15 when, following more brain surgery, running resulted in massive headaches.
Then, in 2005, I tried running again as part of a club at the local gym and found that there were no headaches after the run. So I decided it was time to give something back for all those who had helped me and got in touch with the Brain and Spine Foundation about running for and raising money for them.
I ran my first marathon for the charity in 2007 in London, then again in 2008. But New York was always the dream, and on November 1st it came true.
On a perfect day for marathon running my day started at 5am with breakfast. I was staying in the heart of Times Square so getting a taxi down to the Staten Island ferry was never going to be a problem. New York truly never sleeps! The whole atmosphere at the ferry terminal was one of excitement mixed with apprehension. Thousands of people were waiting for their journey across to the start area on Staten Island.
Once there it was time to relax for a couple of hours before the race began. There is a lot of sitting around at the start but I just got into my sleeping bag and bedded down for an hour. Then suddenly we were called to the start. The start area was on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, a huge suspension bridge linking Staten Island with Brooklyn.
And so began the journey of 42,000 people, and a very personal one for me. It was a fantastic experience; I have never experienced such a passionate crowd. From the moment we stepped off the bridge and entered Brooklyn, where the crowd were ten deep on both sides of the road and steel drums were playing, to running down Fifth Avenue on Manhattan where the crowds were in the road cheering you on just as they do in the Tour De France cycle race (they were that close to you), 2.5 million people were out supporting us all. At the 22-mile mark I had to stop for a minute to relieve some cramp, and as I got going again 100 people cheered me as I set off! Phenomenal. The finish in Central Park was just complete madness; thousands upon thousands of people all trying to get a glimpse of us all as we ran the last two gruelling miles.
New York is most definitely a hard marathon, but a rewarding one. For me it was about fulfilling a dream. As I broke into tears of joy in Central Park, I remembered that hospital bed and the feeling of stepping out of the bed and not being able to stand up. That was the lowest point of my life. At 2pm on 1st November 2009 I can honestly say I was on top of the world.
Never, every give up hope. Always follow your dream and you will achieve it. Only you can make it happen, and you will, but remember those around you, because although at times it may seem you are all alone, that is never the case, you will always find support in whatever you decide to do, whether that support comes from friends and family or from charities such as The Brain and Spine Foundation.Most of all keep smiling, I had the biggest smile I have ever had for 3 hours and 45 minutes because for those few hours the pain really didn’t matter anymore. The human spirit did.
