Bill Johncock's dream of pushing his disabled son in the Boston Marathon has to wait until September

Bill Johncock and his differently-abled son Logan have gotten pretty accustomed to rolling with the punches over the past year, as Dad has pushed them – quite literally – toward a big running goal: the 2020 Boston Marathon.

The first major milepost came on March 2,2019, when Johncock fought through leg cramps at the Myrtle Beach Marathon but ultimately won the battle, pushing then-20-year-old Logan across the finish line in a borrowed racing wheelchair in a time fast enough to qualify them for Boston as a “duo team”.

Much more recently, a different borrowed racing chair turned out to have a steering problem that wore out Johncock’s arms more than his legs at the Atlanta Half Marathon, a tune-up race he ran with Logan just a few weekends ago.

And now they are having to roll with something Johncock never could have anticipated when he first started down his personal road to Boston: With the coronavirus pandemic and the current trend of cancelling large public events continuing, the Boston Marathon – originally set for April 20 – has been postponed to Sept 14.

Johncock’s trying to take it all in stride.

“It’s just like the chair, or the weather. It’s something that is beyond our control, ” says the 55-year-old podiatrist. “We’re gonna control what we can control. The rest, we’ve gotta put it in God’s hands.... We’ll go to Plan B.”

But at the same time, you can tell how big a blow it is to him. After all, getting to the Boston Marathon with Logan – who has a rare genetic disorder called Angelman syndrome, which makes walking difficult and talking impossible – has been Johncock’s dream for the past 15 years.

Johncock developed a nearly instant passion for running when he was 13 years old.

Even after Johncock started having kids of his own, he kept running, eventually logging more than 100 marathons. He pushed his first son, Drake, in a jogging stroller on the weekends. But by the time Logan came along, Drake was on to other things, and as his three kids grew up, Johncock bonded with each of them over different activities.

His and Logan’s was running; in fact, by the time Logan was about two years old, they were already entering races together.

“My oldest son used to like to ride in the running chair that we had well enough, but... Logan just lit up – in a different way, ” Johncock says. “I guess maybe because of some of his lack of mobility, he really enjoyed the movement of it. It was just like, ‘Wow.’”

Angelman is somewhat similar to Down syndrome, marked by delayed development and intellectual disability.

Logan can’t speak at all, communicating either via a very limited sign-language vocabulary he uses only “if he’s really motivated”, his dad says, laughing – “he signs pretty good for cheeseburgers, but he doesn’t sign very well for broccoli” – or by either pointing or pulling his parents or siblings toward what he wants. He can feed himself, but he can’t dress himself. He can walk, but not very far or for very long; and he certainly can’t run.

Oh, and one other thing about people with Angelman: They generally are unusually happy. Logan is no exception. And the more his dad ran with him, the happier he seemed.

‘The best motivation in the world’

As an individual, Johncock has qualified for and run the Boston Marathon six times – in 1984 with his dad, then again in 1991,1992,1993,2002 and 2005.

But it was while there solo in 2005 that he got the idea to mix things up a little bit. While at the race expo in Boston, he happened to meet Dick Hoyt and his son Rick, who for decades were a fixture at the event, with Dick pushing Rick (who has cerebral palsy) and the pair inspiring countless spectators and runners along the way.

Johncock went home inspired, eventually signing up to push then-six-year-old Logan in the Thunder Road Marathon in Charlotte later that year. Johncock also decided to tie a charity component to his efforts, and wound up raising US$30,000 (RM127,500) for a playground for Logan’s school – the Conover School, which serves children with special needs.

After their long run in Charlotte, Johncock pushed Logan through another marathon in 2007, and a third in 2013. But while these other marathons permitted children, Boston’s rules specify that riders on duo teams must be 18 or older.

Logan became “legal” in 2017, and in 2019, Johncock mustered up the time and the motivation to try to qualify, at age 54.

But, as always, all Johncock can do is just roll with it. “A life is more important. As big as this is for us, the health of a lot of other people is more important. So yeah, it looks like we’ll have to wait. But... eventually, we’ll get there.”

posted Tuesday March 31st