He’s Teaching Others to Run, Because He Can’t Do It Anymore

Never one to waste a spare second, Matt Fitzgerald clambered into the second row of his Mazda CX-90 on a latest weekday morning and cracked open his MacBook in order that he may work on one other e-book.

Mr. Fitzgerald, 52, is many issues — author, public speaker, coach — however principally he’s prolific. He has written or co-written 34 books, most of them about operating, endurance sports activities and diet. He writes early. He writes typically. He writes lots.

“Sometimes I do feel like I’m doing B-plus work on a dozen things versus A-plus work on three or four,” he mentioned. “But I am who I am. There’s always a couple of things where I try to give the absolute best of myself at any given time, and I guess that’s enough.”

Mr. Fitzgerald has the kind of slim, athletic construct that hints at one other a part of his identification: distance runner. He has been prolific in that space, too, ending 50 marathons — his quickest in 2 hours 39 minutes 30 seconds. And, as soon as upon a time, he would have been jogging on the quiet, snow-dusted street in Flagstaff, Ariz., the place he had parked his sport-utility car.

Instead, Mr. Fitzgerald was ready for John Gietzel, a 48-year-old enterprise marketing consultant from Winnipeg, Manitoba, to complete loosening up in order that he may shut his laptop computer and coach him by a collection of hill sprints. As for himself, Mr. Fitzgerald has barely exercised in three years.

“I probably wouldn’t be doing this if I hadn’t gotten sick,” Mr. Fitzgerald mentioned. “But I’ve found it surprisingly rewarding.”

Mr. Fitzgerald’s bout with lengthy Covid has, in necessary methods, compelled him to reshape who he’s and what he does. In the method, he has discovered vicarious pleasure by beginning a enterprise known as Dream Run Camp out of his residence in Flagstaff, the place he lives along with his spouse, Nataki, and a rotating forged of leisure runners who pay between $45 and $115 a day to remain in one in all 4 visitor bedrooms and be coached by him.

“I’m trying to create a happening,” mentioned Mr. Fitzgerald, who shared his long-term imaginative and prescient: “Fast forward a few years, and everyone in the world has heard of Dream Run Camp, and there’s this mystique about it and it’s all good vibes.”

He organizes group runs each morning. He has “coach’s office hours” each afternoon when he emerges from his writing lair to supply PowerPoint shows on matters like “Disrupting Complacency” and “Hard Fun.” Mr. Fitzgerald’s campers, whom he calls “dream runners,” can keep for nonetheless lengthy they like, as much as 12 weeks.

Mr. Gietzel, who has a job that enables him to work remotely, is staying for a few month in order that he can practice for the Mesa Marathon on Feb. 10. Mr. Fitzgerald plans to be on the end line.

“There’s some kind of magic here,” Mr. Gietzel mentioned. “I’m already feeling it.”

Mr. Fitzgerald had no method of realizing it on the time, however he now believes that the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in February 2020 modified his life. He had traveled to Atlanta to make some promotional appearances forward of the occasion after which race within the Publix Atlanta Marathon the day after the trials. “That weekend was much fun,” he mentioned.

After returning residence, Mr. Fitzgerald fell ailing. His spouse quickly obtained sick, too. They each consider they’d contracted Covid, although all of this occurred earlier than the provision of at-home assessments and earlier than widespread authorities shutdowns.

“We both stayed home and recovered, because hospitals were packed,” Nataki Fitzgerald mentioned.

Mr. Fitzgerald felt horrible for a few month — “It was by far the sickest I’d ever been,” he mentioned — earlier than he slowly resumed his previous lifestyle. In truth, he was operating and exercising with out difficulty by the summer season of 2020.

“And then it all started to unravel in mysterious ways,” he mentioned. “My neurological symptoms just became showstopping. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t write. I couldn’t create a training plan. I didn’t want to interact with people.”

Much stays unknown about lengthy Covid. While there isn’t any check that determines whether or not signs like fatigue, mind fog and protracted complications are a results of the virus, lengthy Covid can persist for weeks, months and even years, in accordance with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While Mr. Fitzgerald mentioned his neurological points had improved in latest months, he nonetheless experiences continual fatigue and “post-exertional malaise,” which means that something involving bodily effort leaves him feeling terrible.

“Exactly the disease you want if you’re an endurance athlete,” he mentioned.

Early final 12 months, he felt ok to attempt to ease again into operating. After six weeks of progressively constructing his workload, he was capable of jog for half-hour.

“And then the bottom dropped out again,” mentioned Mr. Fitzgerald, who has not jogged past quick distances since.

It has been disorienting for somebody whose whole life revolved sports activities. He recalled one in all his fondest experiences as a runner, when he spent 13 weeks coaching for the 2017 Chicago Marathon as a self-described “fake professional runner” with HOKA NAZ Elite, a Flagstaff-based workforce of world-class distance runners. Mr. Fitzgerald concluded his time with the workforce by operating a personal-best time for the marathon at age 46, and by writing a e-book about it known as “Running the Dream.”

As Mr. Fitzgerald struggled with the results of lengthy Covid, he mirrored on that have in Flagstaff. He knew he may now not run — at the least, not anytime quickly — however he may envision a strategy to keep concerned, through the use of his experience to educate others.

After convincing his spouse that they need to uproot their lives in California and transfer to Flagstaff, which is a high-altitude mecca for runners, Mr. Fitzgerald welcomed his first campers — sorry, dream runners — final May. He has hosted about 30 to date.

“I’ve known him to be someone who delivers on his ideas,” mentioned Ben Rosario, the manager director of HOKA NAZ Elite.

Running camps are usually not precisely a novel idea. Steph Bruce, an elite distance runner, and her husband, Ben, have a weeklong camp for runners in Flagstaff every summer season. There are numerous others throughout the nation.

The distinction with Dream Run Camp is that Mr. Fitzgerald’s dream runners reside in his home.

The partitions are adorned with paintings of prime runners. There is a communal restoration space with a hyperbaric chamber and a contraption known as a vibroacoustic remedy mattress. His storage is outfitted with high-end health gear. The yard incorporates a sauna and a small pool for train swimming. Mr. Fitzgerald and his spouse reside in an hooked up guesthouse.

“It’s a tough thing to promote,” he mentioned. “‘Come to Dream Camp, and be a little bored! It’ll be great for your running!’

“But there’s some truth to it. I see people who come here who are kind of clenched from their normal lives, and after they’ve been here for a few days, they’re liquid.”

While Mr. Fitzgerald appears to have made peace with a few of his limitations, he can’t settle for being a bystander ceaselessly.

Just after midnight on New Year’s Day, he padded downstairs to his pc in order that he may join the Javelina Jundred, a 100-kilometer ultramarathon in Fountain Hills, Ariz., in late October. Mr. Fitzgerald acknowledged how incongruous it sounded.

“I literally cannot run one step right now,” he mentioned.

By method of clarification, Mr. Fitzgerald cited Charles Barkley’s closing season within the N.B.A. After Mr. Barkley ruptured his quadriceps tendon in an early-season recreation, he vowed that he can be again.

Sure sufficient, about 4 months after sustaining his damage, Mr. Barkley returned to play in a single closing recreation, scoring a basket on a putback. He left the courtroom to a standing ovation.

In his personal method, Mr. Fitzgerald mentioned, he desires to do the identical. He even has a working title for a e-book that he desires to jot down: “Dying to Run: An Ailing Athlete’s Quest for One Last Finish Line.”

“I’m not doing this because I’m recovering,” he mentioned. “I’m doing this because I’m not recovering.”

Mr. Fitzgerald doesn’t anticipate to race, per se. He solely desires to complete throughout the occasion’s 29-hour cutoff, even when which means strolling the course.

“I can just survive,” he mentioned.