Troy Pruett has many titles — Navy veteran, husband and runner. Come Sunday, he may be closer to perhaps his most coveted and remarkable one yet: 100-time marathoner.
Pruett will compete in his 96th marathon on Sunday when he crosses the start line of the annual BMW Dallas Marathon. That feat would be worthy of newspaper headlines, but what makes the Grapevine resident’s story even more extraordinary is that in January 2023 he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also called ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease.
As a neurodegenerative disease, ALS strips individuals of their mobility and motor functions over time. However, Pruett was in the midst of a love affair with the sport of distance running when he received his diagnosis, and after initially becoming resigned to the fact that his marathoning days were numbered, he came to the conclusion it wouldn’t stop him.
“I pretty much gave up on running,” he said. “They tell you right away after being diagnosed to get your life in order. You have two years to live. Don’t do any physical activity. So, we lived through that mindset for six to seven months.”
Then he concluded a sedentary life wasn’t for him.
“I got to thinking that there’s got to be more than living to die,” Pruett said.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs got wind of Pruett’s past marathoning days, as well as his goal to run 100 marathons, and gifted him a disability push chair to help him reach his goal. On Sunday he will compete with that chair with five different runners taking turns pushing him to the finish line.
Before his diagnosis, Pruett took up running after his time in the Navy. He had been a soccer player for over 30 years and was simply looking for a way to get in shape for soccer when he tried running for the first time.
“My first run lasted a half mile,” he said. “I almost passed out, it was July heat in Texas. On my way back to the car people were asking if I was all right.”
That didn’t stop him from continuing in 2003 with his running hobby.
“A half mile became one, which became two. When I got to 10 miles, I thought about a marathon.”
Pruett’s first marathon was the 2004 Cowtown Marathon, an annual road race through the Fort Worth Stockyards. How did it go for him?
“It was horrible,” he joked.
Later that year he ran the Dallas Marathon and qualified for the Boston Marathon. It’s safe to say he took to this running thing pretty quickly.
After catching the marathoning bug, Pruett came up with the goal of running a marathon in all 50 states, along with finishing all of the major marathon races, which consist of the 26.2-mile races in Boston, New York City, Chicago, London, Berlin, Tokyo and the most recent addition this year in Sydney.
Before COVID-19 hit, Pruett had run all the major marathons except for Tokyo, which he was registered to run in March 2020. Tokyo was canceled on multiple occasions in the wake of the global pandemic, and Pruett started to have health issues by the time the race came back.
Pruett inquired about competing in Tokyo in his chair with someone pushing him, but race organizers denied his request. He contacted the World Marathon Majors, but they denied him as well. He thought he’d try one last time and contacted the vice president of human relations at Abbott Pharmaceuticals, the title sponsor of the World Marathon Major races, and two months later he got an invite to compete in the 2025 Tokyo Marathon. Pruett is part of a pilot program at the Tokyo Marathon for duo teams, which is when one person pushes a non-ambulatory person with a disability in a customized racing wheelchair. Three such teams will compete in Japan.
Along with having Tokyo on the docket for March, the Dallas Marathon on Sunday will be Pruett’s 96th marathon.
For his wife Laura, the journey has been difficult but worthwhile.
“He noticed and his doctors confirmed that he was slow-progressing. We switched our mindset to living instead of preparing for the alternative,” Laura said.
This weekend will involve significant preparation and coordination for Troy and Laura. At major marathons with a duo division, only one pusher is allowed for the entirety of the race. However at smaller marathons, there is a team of runners to assist Troy, and there’ll be five pushers and two helpers partaking in his race on the streets of Dallas this weekend.
Out of his 95 marathons, which one was Pruett’s favorite?
“Palo Duro out in the panhandle of Texas and the Cascade Mountains in Washington. Of the majors, Boston is my favorite,” he said.
Pruett has a community of runners and friends who have helped him in his journey pre- and post-diagnosis. He met Grapevine resident Doug Keefe at a running club in 2006 and they have stayed connected since.
“Running was the bond that brought us all together as friends. Some of us don’t run or don’t run as far as we used to, but the bond is still there. We’re still good friends outside of running,” Keefe said.
Does Pruett intend to compete in the newly announced marathon major in Sydney? He said he hasn’t given it a lot of thought but was quick to point out that no matter what he’ll get his six-star medal, given to people who finish all of the marathon major races, after Tokyo this spring.
He might not be breaking his 2:48 personal best in the marathon this weekend, but he’ll be one step closer to the rarified air of 100 marathons completed, and he’ll do it back where this journey first began at the Dallas Marathon.
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