Going the Distance: A Trip to NYC - A Trip to Reunite with Dr. Ryan

Mary McManus knew challenges since she was five years old beginning with contracting polio followed by enduring nine years of violence at the hands of family members. Those early challenges prepared her for taking on the challenge of the diagnosis of post polio syndrome, a progressive neuromuscular disease in December 2006 when she was at the height of her award winning career as a social worker at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Asking for Divine Guidance as she had throughout her trials and tribulations, she discovered the gift of poetry in her soul. Her first poem, “Running the Race,” foreshadowed her 2009 Boston Marathon run. “Going the Distance: The Power of Endurance,” chronicles Mary’s journey as a survivor of paralytic polio and trauma, as a runner and a woman who refused to quit. Eight years after receiving the diagnosis, she was finally led to two healers, a chiropractor and a muscular therapist, who helped her reclaim her life and go the distance, a woman transformed who embodies the power of endurance.

Tomorrow Tom and I board a train to NYC to meet one of those healers, Dr. Ryan J. Means while he is stateside. He has brought his gift of chiropractic care to China. I am absolutely delighted that since he can't come to Boston this trip, I'll be able to meet up with him in New York. Just being in his presence triggers a cascade of healing feelings throughout my body and Being. He was the first healer I met on this healing odyssey who unequivocally reminded me about all that I knew but had forgotten about my body's capacity to heal and was supporting me in bringing into physical manifestation all that I had written about in my poetry.



We are going to celebrate together! It's ten years next month since I was diagnosed with post polio syndrome and coincidentally one month from tomorrow I turn 63 years old. It's been 7 years since my last trip to New York when I was sporting this baby:


Tomorrow and Saturday we will be walking around the City and I'll be sporting my Altra running shoes.

We will be celebrating that I will be running my 2nd CONSECUTIVE Bermuda Half Marathon in 50 Days.


Ryan taught me that I should set goals not limits, that I was worthy of a dedicated, caring, compassionate and passionate healing partner. He got me back on the roads. Although Ryan lives in China, we stay in touch via Facebook and the healing he set in motion continues. He is with me when I work out, when I run, when I swim and I feel his presence to counter any doubts I may have about going the distance in health and wellness.

Tomorrow's train ride will be spent editing Going the Distance: The Power of Endurance.

It's so important to share our healing stories so that others know what is possible in this life and that we are not our diagnoses, we are not what happened to us and we can certainly create a future different from our past.



It's Thanksgiving and in addition to having a belly filled with wonderful food, my heart overflows with gratitude for the blessings of health and wellness, for two healers who have partnered with me to go the distance and to my husband who has been with me every step and every mile of this most wondrous odyssey.

To your health and wellness!
~Mary

"A Long Time Coming" by Jacqueline Hansen

"Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints on your heart." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt quoted on p. 161 of "A Long Time Coming"

When I saw that Jacqueline Hansen was going to be the guest speaker at the Hyannis Marathon Weekend pre-race pasta dinner I did not know anything about her other than she had won the Boston Marathon in 1973 as was advertised on the website.

We sat enthralled listening to her stories about when she ran the Boston Marathon to qualify for the Olympic trials, all the work she did to get equality for women endurance runners and fielded questions from the audience with Geoffrey Smith and Bill Rodgers.



After the dinner, Tom and I met Jacqueline and purchased her book.



It is dog eared and well loved as I took Jacqueline's journey with her from, as she calls herself, "a child of the sixties, who became a feminist in the seventies and a soccer mom in the eighties. I suppose I spent a good deal of the nineties and beyond, on giving back to the sport that gave me such rich life experiences. Looking back, I would do it all over again in a heartbeat."

We are so blessed that Jacqueline did it all the first time, working through injuries and health issues and sharing all the trials and triumphs she experienced as a runner and a pioneer for women's equality in the sport of distance running.

I could hear her voice coming through this intimate portrayal of her life on and off the roads.

From her Boston Marathon run to qualify for the Olympic trials:
"When I woke up on the hospital cot with an IV bottle hanging overhead and dog tags around my neck, in a woolen blanket, the doctor said, 'We're keeping you here for observation. Your temperature is below 93-degrees' I responded with teeth chattering out of control, 'Did I finish? What was my time?' He made a joke to the nurse that, although I was dying, I'd like to know my time. She went away to find out. My watch was still running so I did not know and had to know."

She creates a beautiful tapestry of journal entries, blog posts, narrative and inspirational quotes that lead off the chapters.

Chapter 19 is preceded by this quote, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed it's the only thing that ever does." ~Margaret Mead

With passion, leadership, dedication and bringing together a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens, Jacqueline Hansen paved the road for women to be able to run endurance events in the Olympics. The trail she blazed and the story she tells will capture your heart and captivate your mind.

It's such an exciting time here in Boston as we get ready to celebrate 50 years of women's running and honoring Bobbi Gibb, the first woman to run the Boston Marathon throughout the events of the 2016 Boston Marathon festivities.

I feel incredibly honored and privileged to have met Jacqueline Hansen in Hyannis and recommend her book to all of you. She left a footprint on my heart when she came out on the course of the Hyannis 10K. She stopped me and hugged me and whispered to me, "Run with all your heart." And I did feeling the touch of a champion blessing my journey.

Jacqueline Hansen's heart, humility, honesty and reflections will leave a footprint on your heart as you turn the pages of "A Long Time Coming."

To your health and wellness,
Mary

#tbt Book Release Party for Coming Home:A Memoir of Healing, Hope and Possibility

Saturday marks the one year anniversary since I launched my memoir, "Coming Home: A Memoir of Healing, Hope and Possibility." I hadn't given it much thought until I received this email this morning:

Hi Mary,

It was great seeing you again a few weeks ago. I was so happily surprised that you remembered me.
I wanted you to know that I just bought your memoir and read about 60 pages of it. I find it so incredibly inspiring. I have decided that I want to take on some big growth challenges in the next few months. Seeing how you handled the combination of post polio symptoms, PTSD, and caretaker burnout, helps me feel a bit more secure about successfully completing the challenges. Thank you so much for writing your memoir and selling it at Marathon Sports.
Best regards,

It's a perfect time to throw it back to that very special day, one year ago on 5/23/14, forever imprinted in my heart and soul as I wrote in my blog and share in "Journey Well":

Everything I Imagined and More - 5/25/14

"Imagination is everything. It's the preview of life's coming attractions." - Albert Einstein

I set an intention for my Book Release Party; ease, grace and gratitude and that everyone who attended the event would leave feeling inspired not only by me but by each other's stories.

Friday night's book release party for Coming Home: A Memoir of Healing, Hope and Possibility was everything I imagined and more.

Ellen Gabriel, the manager of the Brookline Marathon Sports store had refreshments at the ready. She told me not to worry about doing a thing except setting up what I needed to set up.



Boston Marathon memorabilia. Spaulding Rehabilitation Network singlet I wore on 4/20/2009. My bib signed by Frank Shorter and Bill Rodgers. The newspaper from the 2009 Hyannis Marathon/Half Marathon the first Half Marathon I ran with a brief interview with a reporter. My finisher's medal, finisher's photo, the Spaulding Race for Rehab souvenir book and a letter from Johnny Kelley the elder's nephew when they sent a signed photo of Johnny to us.

I was reunited with my coach Domenick D'Amico and Amy Yok-Ming Wong who I met several years ago during one of Domenick's return to Boston trips. She runs for the Parkinsons Foundation in honor of her mom who died from Parkinson's Disease.



Guests arrived. We socialized and schmoozed. There were introductions and hugs all around. The energy in the room was electric. I met Randy Pierce who recently qualified for Boston who I wrote about in my blog. I introduced him to my Coach and they were talking about the Boston Marathon course.

The love that I felt in cyberspace for friends such as Maureen Lamie, who works as a hair stylist, was even more powerful in person.



Karen DiMare and I met through a Gratitude Challenge on Facebook. She shared with me the frightening health challenge of her husband Chris and we developed an on line friendship. I encouraged her and Chris to advocate for themselves and supported their positive attitude as they went through the uncertainty of his diagnosis. I know that my journey helped to give them strength and hope.

They surprised me with the gift of their presence. Chris had a tumor on his spinal cord. He had to learn how to walk all over again. Karen is the owner of DiMare Holistic Skin Care and I could feel how she blesses her clients with her loving and caring touch.

I met Vicki Vogt by phone when I worked at the VA. She was a loving liaison at the Perkins Talking Book Library. When I met her in person several years ago to record my poetry books for Perkins, she shared with me that she is a polio survivor. We have stayed in touch via email and Facebook. She looked amazing when I saw her. At my suggestion, she went to Spaulding Rehab's International Rehab Center for Polio and said she feels better. I had mentioned that I now go to Spaulding Rehab's Aquatics Therapy program during my presentation. During the book signing, she asked me for more details and plans to follow up with our mutual doctor at Spaulding to see about getting a prescription to go there.

I was humbled and amazed when a group of people from L Street Running Club arrived, including the President Theresa and her husband Steve. There were people who aren't on Facebook and who I did not have email addresses for, but who I had seen as part of #supportcrew on long runs or from meetings. They heard about it through word of mouth and showed up to support me. They hadn't RSVP'ed that they were coming.

And my friends Maura and Meghan with whom we shared water stop duty last winter for L Street arrived with Dennis for whom they were doing the water stop because he was training for Boston.



It was time to begin.... I opened with this selection from the Introduction of my memoir

"I left home at the age of 5 – my earthly home that is. I contracted childhood paralytic polio. Polio was the AIDS of its day. If you contracted polio, you were shunned. There was a fear of contagion. Fear breeds ignorance that is far more devastating that any disease. Three years later my father fell into alcoholism and I was raped and beaten, threatened with death and tortured by my father for 9 years until he ended his life. My maternal grandmother physically, sexually and emotionally abused me with cruel rituals that tortured my body and my mind. My mother was addicted to prescription pain medication. My older brother was numb and trying to survive the chaotic household as best he could. He chose to align himself with the aggressors. I learned early on how to dissociate and to harness the power of my intellect to survive but I paid a steep price for leaving home and disowning my body. I bided my time until it was time to heal."

The room was silent yet the compassion and support for my journey was palpable. (Photo credit: Maura Walsh)




I shared an overview of my journey and read selections that talked about my Boston Marathon journey that all began at the Brookline Marathon Sports store where I was fitted for my first pair of running shoes at the age of 53.



Emotions welled up within me as I recalled the role that Domenick played throughout our training and how the Marathon Sports employees became family to Team McManus.

It was time to sign the books and greet my friends one by one.

Maura Walsh with whom I shared the water stop is a professional photographer. She also captured these special moments for me:


My dear friend John Young came out to support me. He said what a difference we had made when he was finishing his race as I write about in my blog post Today He Was The Hammer. He ran his fastest time for 16 miles in part because he knew we were waiting for him at the base of Heartbreak Hill.



Here's a photo of Amy, John and me. John and Amy connected because they are both running the NYC Marathon. John is going to use NYC for his Boston Qualifier race. Amy had read about John in my blog and are now friends.



After running the Cambridge 5 Miler/3 Mile City Walk, I connected with Jess Lanzoni who runs with Back On My Feet Boston. It was wonderful to meet her in person as we had run part of the way with women from Back On My Feet seeing how they encourage one another to just run to the next pole or stop sign or whatever. Jess is as warm, loving and genuine in person as she is in cyberspace. She told me in a facebook comment after the party that she would also like to buy additional copies of my memoir and asked if I would be donating a portion of the on line sales to The One Fund. I decided that I would donate 50% of the royalty payments which is $2/book to The One Fund to support the ongoing care that those affected by 4/15/13 are going to need.

Al Pappalardo has been a longtime friend. We met through the Merrimack Valley Striders Club. Last November we were reunited at the Feaster Five Expo. I had lost contact with Al and my friends in the running community after my nephew's suicide in 2011 when I stopped running and isolated myself from the running community. Here we are at the Expo:



He greeted me with, "Boy Mary, I had no idea the extent of your history." Al does charity work to prevent Child Abuse. I had sent him all the gift cards I had around the house for his raffle. I told him, "That's why I sent you all those gift cards for your event." I could feel the compassion flow from his heart.

People gave me checks and $20 bills saying keep the change for The One Fund.

We raised $122 for The One Fund from proceeds of book sales and the generosity of my friends.

At the end of the evening, Ellen took this photo of Tom and me:



He told me it was a no brainer when my team at Spaulding told me I had to quit my job if I had any hope of preventing the progression of post polio syndrome.

Seven years ago today I closed the door on one chapter of my life. Thirty of my friends came out to support me as I shared my healing odyssey and to celebrate the release of my memoir. My friends who could not be there in person sent me messages and told me they would be with me in Spirit. Were they ever!

The common thread among my friends and my life today is that we all believe in giving back. We take our challenges and create the best life we possibly can with them. While my friends applauded me at the end of my book reading, I applaud them for all that they are doing to make this world a better, more beautiful place in one way or another.

I am blessed and my heart overflows with gratitude especially to Ellen and to Marathon Sports.

In my mind's eye I visualized myself running, feeling free, whole and healthy as my pen became my Divining rod for healing as I wrote poetry after being diagnosed with post polio syndrome. It's been an incredible journey filled with ups, downs and everything in between but I am here now ready to write the next chapters of my journey.

My book release party and my life today is everything I imagined - and more.

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What made my Book Release Party so special and what continues to make my life so special today is the amazing community of friends I have who embrace my journey and offer me cheers of unconditional love and support every mile of the way.

I am basking in the glow of this #tbt post and feeling deep gratitude for my journey these past 8 years!


Be blessed! Journey well! To all good things...

My latest book, "Journey Well" is now available on Amazon along with all of my inspirational books. 50% of book proceeds are donated to the Massachusetts Resiliency Center, a safe, welcoming space for survivors of the Boston Marathon bombing to heal and stay in touch with one another; a virtual hub for a widely dispersed community whose lives have been impacted by the tragic events of April 15th and the events that followed.

When terror struck the world's oldest and most beloved marathon on April 15, 2013, it was a defining moment in Mary McManus’ life and the lives of all those in Boston and around the world. It was her wake up call to return to the sport and community that have been medicine and a lifeline for her throughout her marathon of healing the late effects of paralytic polio and experiencing 9 years of domestic violence as a child and adolescent. Mary captures the essence of Boston Strong through her experience of the 2014 Boston Marathon and as she profiles the people who are Boston Stronger. Through her blog posts, poems and journal entries woven together with excerpts from her memoir, “Coming Home: A Memoir of Healing, Hope and Possibility,” you will experience, through one woman’s journey of transformation and healing, that no matter what happens to us, we can all learn to journey well.