In 2022 I was on top of the world. We had just bought a house, our first baby was on the way, I was running the NYC marathon for Still I Run that November, life was good. Until the news struck that we were never ready to hear.

It was late September and the doctor called to tell us that we needed to come in for a sonogram after a blood test for the baby showed an abnormality. We anxiously sat waiting in the doctor’s office for the results, it is a moment I have replayed in my head too many times to count, and one I can never forget. Our baby had a rare brain malformation and would not be able to survive outside of the womb. After 20 weeks of pregnancy, we lost someone we so dearly wanted to meet. I still ran the marathon a few weeks later in blistering 75-degree heat, not knowing that some of my darkest days were ahead of me.

I have these shoes from training for the marathon that I wore to a doctor appointment when we started to try to have a baby again. The doctor had some encouragaing and positive news, something we had not heard in awhile, so I wore those shoes to every appointment that followed. I wore them in the delivery room when both of my sons were born. After countless doctor and hospital visits, they sit in my closet now, the soles completely worn off, holes in both, the right shoe bursting at the toes. I will never get rid of them.

These shoes are symbolic of my own mental health journey. No matter how broken, tired, ready to give up, defeated I was, I tied my laces every day and put one foot in front of the other knowing and believing that one day it would be better.  

I am running the 2026 NYC marathon for my wife, two kids, my family and all the people that have been struck by grief and mental health struggles, especially the ones affected by pregnancy loss and infertility. 

Today, I am a board member for Still I Run and have a front row seat to all the influential and tremendous work this organization does on a daily basis. Every and any dollar or donation goes a longer way than you could ever imagine.