Long Road to Boston for Morristown’s Boyadjis

When Anthony Boyadjis of Morristown waits with the other marathoners for the start of tomorrow’s Boston Marathon, he’ll be going through the pre-race jitters that he always has, but for this race, much more is on the line. Like many marathoners, Boyadjis will be running in support of a charity. But unlike most of those runners, Boyadjis will be running for something, for someone, a little closer to home – his wife Lauren.

Boyadjis was born in Morristown and has spent nearly all of his life in his hometown except for his years away at Cornell and a couple more years in Boston early on in his law career.

In his freshman year at Morristown, his Greek heritage dictated that he try out for soccer, but when he failed a self test to run two and a half miles comfortably, he decided he should not even show up for practice. Meanwhile a good buddy convinced him to try out for track, and in doing so he found out that with some practice he was pretty good at running after all. Having found a sport he loved, he never returned to soccer.

“I wasn’t the greatest guy on the team,” said Boyadjis, who was a miler and two miler at Morristown. At Cornell he competed those distances and the 5,000 and 10,000 meters, but he was also doing road races in New York state and back home in New Jersey.

At Cornell in his senior year, coming off an injury, Boyadjis was cut from the team. His buddy, who Boyadjis had recruited for the team was furious. In a show of support he quit the team and the two sought out road races instead of collegiate competition. Cornell’s loss was Boyadjis gain as he blossomed as a distance runner. He remembers one memorable half marathon that he won in 1:12. He also ran a marathon during that period in under three hours and would have done better on a flatter course with adequate water stops.

Running wasn’t the only thing going for Boyadjis. By 1994, he and his wife Lauren were parents of twin daughters Hannah and Rachel, and were expecting their third child. It was proving to be a difficult pregnancy, which was puzzling since she had sailed through the twin’s pregnancy in 1990 with no trouble.

Tests had been performed but no cause for Lauren’s weakness had been found. Then in her fifth month Lauren went into labor and lost the baby.

It was a cousin, an internist, who pointed them toward the correct diagnosis. Lauren was dealing with Polymyositis, a disease of the Lupus family in which the auto immune system turns against its own body, treating muscle tissue as a foreign substance that must be attacked and removed. It had attacked the baby in her womb and was attacking her.

The powerful steroid Prednisone is the treatment of choice, with no real alternative. Left untreated the body deteriorates further and the disease attacks organs with death following. Lauren has had good months when she feels fine but has had flare-ups where she is very weak.

“Lauren is an amazing person,” said Anthony. “She adapts and doesn’t complain and she figures out a way to get things done. Most people don’t even know she is sick.”

Even their children who are now sophomores at Morristown High School were not aware how sick their mother was.

“We didn’t want them to be worrying about their poor invalid mother,” he said. “The kids were almost completely unaffected by it, largely because of s Lauren’s valor and the way she was able to handle things and the adaptations that she was able to make.”

In 2001 Anthony was having trouble hitting 11 minutes a mile on training runs. Sneaker Factory coach Dean Shonts of Morristown suggested that he had gotten stale from training. His solution was to race himself out of his slump and by November he had run eleven races in three months and began to feel fit again. He wondered if he could run a marathon.

After a series of near misses he qualified for Boston at the 2004 Jersey Shore Marathon, but by then Lauren had taken another bad turn and became very sick.

“I would have to get the kids ready for school, drive them to school, drive back home and help Lauren into the shower, bathe her and get her lunch organized and get her situated wherever she was going to be that day,” said Anthony. “She couldn’t get up the stairs alone and we have a half flight down to the den where the television is.”

Since she wouldn’t be able to get up to her kitchen, Anthony would leave her with a lunch and a cooler. But showing her ingenuity, Lauren figured out that if she could get to the car in the garage off the lower level she could drive it around to the front of the house to get to the next level without having to deal with stairs.

“While Lauren was struggling with her illness, and she’s trying to struggle up the steps, I’m trying to see if I can run forty miles a week or fifty miles a week and run these marathons,” said Boyadjis. “So that was kind of a strange juxtaposition.”

Meanwhile Anthony’s plans for running Boston in 2005 were gone. In a cruel twist, the only appointment that they could get with a renowned polymyositis specialist was on Boston Monday at 12 noon, the start time for the marathon.

After a series of treatments over the summer, the disease was still out of control, but by October 2005 Lauren was beginning to feel better and her numbers were coming back to better levels.

Anthony started to run again and his thoughts returned to Boston. He wrote to the Boston Athletic Association asking for entry consideration to run as a charity runner for the Myositis Association and it was granted, based on his 2004 qualifying time.

Anthony has been overwhelmed with the support he has received. Over seventy people have donated to the Myositis Association and he expects even more once he has completed the race.

“There are several people who are waiting to see what I do,” said Anthony. “Maybe in their mind, some people want to give based on how many miles I do and I feel like I’m taking a sucker bet. There’s just no way (I won’t finish) unless I get hit by a car, or lose consciousness - I am going to finish this thing.”

People who would like to make a donation in Anthony Boyadjis name can send it to the Myositis Association at 1233 20th Street NW, Suite 402, Washington DC 20036.

Published in the DAILY RECORD of Morris County, New Jersey on Sunday, April 16, 2006.

Copyright, Madeline Bost, 2006