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| Michael Westphal goes for a short run on the one main road on Great Cranberry Island Wednesday in preparation for the Boston Marathon. Westphal has Parkinson's disease but hasn't let that from stopping his love for running. (Ashley L. Conti | BDN) |
APRIL 18TH 2016
BOSTON (WGME) -- 30,000 runners will be at the starting line for this year's 120th Boston Marathon. The field includes hundreds of runners from Maine.
One of them last ran the Boston Marathon in 1986 in under two and a half hours.
"He was one of the best runners in the State of Maine," Gary Allen, marathon runner, said.
As a young man, distance runner Mike Westphal would often be first to cross the finish line.
Now, he finds himself in a different race; a race to find a cure for Parkinson's disease.
"I've been an athlete all my life and it just didn't occur to me. To me, Parkinson's was somebody who had the shakes and I had no symptoms like that. I had a stiff shoulder," Westphal said.
Westphal was diagnosed with Parkinson's 10 years ago. The degenerative disorder of the central nervous system restricts mobility and is caused by dopamine-producing nerve cells dying off. To offset that, he takes dopamine replacement drugs five times a day.
At first, the drug did wonders. He was nearly symptom free, but gradually, the Parkinson's began to take over, affecting his movement and coordination. Then one day, Westphal decided to give running a try. And to his surprise, the running seemed to shed his symptoms."
"When I'm running, I don't feel any symptoms and it lasts for a while. And I just feel better physically all over," Westphal said.
Westphal says two men gave him the inspiration to start running again. Actor Michael J. Fox is one of them.
"I saw Michael J. Fox on TV being interviewed and he wasn't going to let Parkinson's stop him. So I decided I wasn't going to let it stop me either," Westphal said.
The other is his longtime friend, Gary Allen, who had run from Canada to Washington D.C. in two and a half weeks.
"And I figured if he can run all that way down in 17 days, I could run down to the end of the island and back," Westphal said.
Westphal and Allen grew up on Great Cranberry Island and both still live there. "He and I, we feed off of each other for years. We've been running together for years," Westphal said,
"We're 100 percent of the graduating class from the one room school out there that particular year. He and I are it. And to see your best friend and one of the best runners diagnosed with Parkinson's is not a, it's a hard, hard thing," Allen said.
Despite two falls in the last mile of the Great Cranberry Island marathon, Westphal qualified to run this year's Boston Marathon.
"To see Mike rally back and run and trust me, he's not just running. Mike's running really fast for his age division and if you're able to be down there in Boston to see him come in, you'll be amazed. There will be a lot of able-bodied people well behind him and it's phenomenal," Allen said.
Westphal says the more he runs, the better he feels. "Some days you can feel like you can run like the wind," Westphal said.
The dopamine replacement drug is what causes him to shake, but after a few miles, the Parkinson's is barely noticeable.
"His body can still do what he loves to do and the Parkinson's symptoms are sort of put aside for a moment, so what a great thing, yeah," Allen said.
Westphal last crossed the finish line of a Boston Marathon 30 years ago. He's looking forward to the final turn onto Boylston Street.
"It's such an incredible experience running Boston with all the crowds. It's just the ultimate marathon," Westphal said.
"Mike's a compete tiger as far as any terrain. And whether he has Parkinson's or not, I don't know if he'd be running a heck of a lot faster if he didn't have Parkinson's," Allen said.
http://wgme.com/news/local/mainer-runs-boston-marathon-despite-parkinsons-disease
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