They Can Do the Marathon; Why Can't You?

Sunday’s Detroit Free Press/Talmer Bank Marathon comes with a challenge: “You can do this.”

Think not?

Before you answer that, read the stories of a Rochester Hills veteran who lost his sight and both of his legs 15 years ago, and a Canton man who shed nearly 400 pounds.

Former Marine Chuck Sketch, 46, of Rochester Hills has found a way to remain active, despite his physical disabilities. He power a specially designed 12-foot-long bicycle with his hands, while a partner – John Paruch, 56, also of Rochester Hills – rides on the front and pedals with his legs.

And a Plymouth-Canton Schools music teacher Brian Flemming, a mere shadow of his 625 self two years ago, is planning to run, too. Before he decided to get serious about weight loss, Flemming was depressed and downing about a fifth of alcohol a night. He could barely move.

Related:

• How Online Game Helped Canton Man Shed 400 Pounds

Sketch was discharged from the Marines after he was diagnosed with brain cancer. He lost his sight in 1997, and his legs a year later. Doctors offered a dismal prognosis: three, maybe six, months to live.

When he’s on the bicycle, which is called “Chuck Wagon,” he doesn’t feel disabled. “You feel like you’re on top of the world,” he said.

The bicycle was provided by California-based Ride 2 Recovery, which provides veterans with specially outfitted bicycles that offer “an experience that’s both physically and socially rehabilitative,” said Paruch, Ride 2 Recovery’s director of corporate partnerships.

Read the rest of Sketch’s story here.

Tell Us:

• What physical challenges have you overcome?

Flemming, 32, had resigned himself to always being big until he began an online friendship with Jackie Eastham, a British woman with whom he was playing a Pictionary type game called “Draw Something.”

Eastham has myotonic muscular dystrophy – and little sympathy for people who abuse their health. Particularly depressed at one point, “I reached out and decided to spill my guts,” he said. “I was looking for sympathy but didn’t get that from her. She said, ‘You’re pissing your life up the wall.’ “

He changed his life.

“I quit drinking that night,” he said. “I quit cold turkey. I don’t recommend that people do that without consulting a doctor. I had withdrawal symptoms of cold sweats, shaking hands and I couldn’t sleep at night.”

Now, he weighs 235 pounds and is running with 16,000 other runners in the Detroit Chevy Dealers International Half Marathon, competing in Eastham’s honor.

“I think she was the right person, at the right time and she said the right things,” Flemming said. “I was so far gone. I was in a really bad space and I had completely given up on my life. What are the chances that you can meet someone from around the world and that person saves your life?”

Read the rest of Flemming’s story here.

Still think you can’t? Registration has closed, but there’s always next year.

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Screenshot: WJBK, Channel 2, video