MAURICE LOWMAN
THIS REFORMED ADDICT TURNED MARATHONER FINDS REDEMPTION THROUGH RUNNING. IN HIS SIXTH BOSTON MARATHON, HE ADVOCATES FOR SUBSTANCE USE DISORDER AWARENESS AND RECOVERY.
As ultramarathoner Maurice Lowman likes to say, he now runs the streets that used to run him. Long before the native Rhode Islander started training for the
128th Boston Marathon; before he set an ongoing, personal goal to run at least one outdoor mile every day (3,000 days and counting); before he completed more than 40 marathons, numerous shorter sprints, and a handful of longer endurance races… Lowman was “literally, one of the guys on the streets late at night with nowhere to go, besides looking for trouble,” he says.
That’s because for about a decade, Lowman was addicted to hard drugs and alcohol.
“I found running as a positive outlet when I became serious about sobriety and wellness,” says Lowman, who lived along the marathon route in Brighton and Back Bay for a few of his most difficult years.
“To be running down through that neighborhood now as a Boston Marathoner and not as someone who was lost in addiction is a privilege and a gi that I never take for granted.”
Lowman credits first responders in Providence and Seekonk, Mass., with saving his life on two separate occasions by administering an opioid overdose antidote. “This was hardcore stuff that not everybody is fortunate enough to snap out of,” Lowman says.
Lowman got sober in 2015. He says surviving and being able to share his story now “really fuels my gratitude and my drive.”
Lowman’s sixth Boston Marathon is his first with Team
Herren Project, a Rhode Islandbased organization that provides services for people with substance use disorder and their families.
Since 2017, he’s run the prestigious race on behalf of other charities, raising tens of thousands of dollars for various causes. But representing the recovery nonprofit this year is particularly special for Lowman, who has more than 8,500 followers on Instagram, many of whom are inspired by the affirmative outlook this self-proclaimed “hope dealer and cheerleader” brings to fitness communities online and across
New England.
Along with measurable improvements to his physical and mental health, Lowman says running has given him “a solid base of selfesteem.” He recalls finishing his first marathon in Newport, R.I., in 2014, with a deep sense of pride and accomplishment.
“I remember telling myself, ‘why would you chase that feeling [a druginduced high] when you could have this feeling?’” He briefly went back to drugs and alcohol before getting clean a year later. But since then, he has crossed dozens more finish lines.
Following the marathon with
Team Herren Project, Lowman has his sights set on someday qualifying for the Badwater Ultramarathon, a 135-miler through the California desert known as “the world’s toughest footrace.” It wouldn’t be his first intense trail run, but he’s weathered hard journeys before, both on and off the race course.
“When I’m running through the night in the woods, I’m like, this is nothing,” Lowman says with a laugh.
Talking about what he’s overcome helps to put it in perspective. And he knows he’s not alone. Even if another athlete’s story is totally different, “they’re still getting up and getting a er it,” he says. “Whatever is motivating you, I’m cheering for you.”
To be running down through that neighborhood now as a Boston Marathoner and not as someone who was lost in addiction is a privilege and a gi that I never take for granted.”