10/21/2025
Back in 2006, my wife Mary and I went to our niece Lisa’s wedding in Boston. I love taking pictures, but I’ve always preferred being behind the camera, not in front of it. That night I enjoyed the wedding, had a few drinks, and took lots of photos of family and friends.
The next day, while sorting through the pictures, I found one of Mary standing next to a man I didn’t recognize. I looked at the photos before and after it to figure out who he was — still nothing. So I showed it to Mary and asked, “Who’s this guy?”
She gave me a confused look, then softly said the three words that hit me like a ton of bricks:
“That. Is. You.”
I froze. She couldn’t be serious… but when I looked again, I noticed the tie I was wearing. It really was me. I laughed it off, pretending I was joking, but inside, it hurt.
I’ve struggled with my weight all my life. I started gaining weight around age 10. Over the years, I tried everything — new diets, gym memberships, programs like Weight Watchers. I’d lose a few pounds, but within days, I’d fall back into old habits and make excuses. This cycle went on for decades.
I convinced myself I wasn’t “that big.” Even when the scale said 318 pounds and I wore a size 54 waist, I told myself I was just 20–30 pounds overweight. I blamed the lighting in pictures or the angle, anything but the truth.
That photo changed something in me. I was 45 years old when I finally kept a promise I made to Mary years before: to see a doctor about my health. The doctor gave me a hard wake-up call. She even suggested gastric bypass surgery. For years, I thought surgery might be the “easy fix” to my lifelong struggle.
I went to a mandatory info session at the hospital in Boston, expecting to say yes. But after listening to everything, I walked out shaking my head. Surgery wouldn’t save me.
Then, in May 2008, something shifted. I decided to do something I had never done in my life: train to run the Boston Marathon in 2009. My dad ran it when I was 7, and I wanted to do it too. Plus, it gave me a chance to raise money for Cystic Fibrosis, a disease my niece Julia lives with.
When I told Mary, she looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, “I think it’s important. If you do, I’ll have a friend at every mile.”
She believed in me, even when I didn’t believe in myself.
For the next 10 months, I worked harder than ever before. I trained every day. And every time I felt like giving up, I reminded myself: If I quit, I let her down.
In those 10 months, I lost 125 pounds. I went from barely running 10 yards to finishing all 26.2 miles of the 2009 Boston Marathon — without stopping. That day changed my life forever.
Mary threw me a party afterward. In the background were pictures of my weight loss journey — one photo for every month. And standing next to me in the photo was my niece Julia, the one who inspired me to run.
That old photo from the wedding — the one that once hurt me so much — ended up being the spark that started everything. A friend later posted my story online, and the video went viral with over 9 million views.
Today, more than a decade later, Mary and I are still running together through life. I’ve completed 66 marathons and counting. Every time I cross a finish line, I silently thank her — and myself — for not giving up.
That one photo showed me what I didn’t want to see.
But it also showed me who I could become.
Credit goes original owner
