Detective finds extra push to find a CURE
Woonsocket Detective Capt. Michael Lemoine is one of many millions worldwide affected in some way by Alzheimer’s. That’s why he’s trained harder than ever to run this year’s Boston Marathon in an effort to raise funds to fight the, so far, incurable disea
If it looks like Detective Capt. Michael Lemoine is pushing extra hard when he runs the Boston Marathon later this month, there’s a reason. He wants to leave Alzheimer’s in the dust. This will be the third year in a row the veteran city policeman pounds the pavement in the Patriots Day trek from Hopkinton to Boston to raise funds for Alzheimer’s research and caregiver support. And there’s as much spring in his step as ever, inspired by the death of his wife’s father in 2014 after the long and painful goodbye of Alzheimer’s.
“Absolutely – we know personally what this disease does to the mind,” said Lemoine. “In the years since my father-in-law passed, others we know have been diagnosed with this disease. My wife’s aunt has been diagnosed.”
Lemoine started out in the Boston
“To see him running for the cause is a great tribute to him and the family members he’s dedicated this to.” — Woonsocket Police Chief Thomas F. Oates III, in reference to Detective Capt. Michael Lemoine
Marathon as a sort of freelance fundraiser, but in 2016 he was invited to join the Alzheimer’s Association team. The group of roughly half a dozen runners is shooting to raise a half-million dollars, matching last year’s mark.
These days, Lemoine says he still runs in memory of his father- in- law, Donald Driscoll, but he’s also running for others whose lives were taken by Alzheimer’s and the family members who suffered through the loss.
Last year, he ran with the names of nearly 50 Alzheimer’s victims emblazoned on his purple bib. There’s still space available for more names this year.
Deirdre Lemoine – the captain’s wife – helps spread the word about her husband’s efforts on social media.
“I’ve seen first hand what Alzheimer’s can do to a beautiful mind,” she says in a video on the Alzheimer’s team’s crowdfunding page.
With a bubble of babyboomers in the population who are reaching their twilight years, the incidence of Alzeimer's will reach “astronomical proportions” in the not-too-distant future, she explains. But it’s not just a disease that afflicts the aged, and the toll reaches beyond the victims to those who are called upon to care for them.
It’s a disease that “is everywhere” and “the collateral damages, well, it’s not even measurable,” she says.
Lemoine, 48, was actually running in a marathon when his father-in-law passed away. He was in Washington, D.C. to take part in the Marine Corps Marathon in October 2014 at the time.
He was supposed to meet up with his wife at the mile-two marker. He wasn’t sure what happened when the two failed to cross paths, but he found out later family members had called her with the news that Driscoll had passed away. His wife left the marathon area and returned to her hotel room because she didn’t want to give Lemoine the bad news while he was trying to finish the race.
Driscoll was a longtime English teacher and also worked as a deputy director of the state Department of Education for a time. Family members recall him as a gifted wordsmith, but he lost his talents, and much more, as Alzheimer’s continued to chip away at his mind before he died.
There’s at least one person on the Woonsocket Police Department who remembers Driscoll besides Lemoine.
“I knew his father,” says Police Chief Thomas F. Oates III, who was friendly with the fellow Glocester resident.
Lemoine is running with the full support and enthusiasm of the police department behind him, says the chief.
“Alzheimer’s touches so many families and so many people... To see his dedication – and I see it every day – to see him running for the cause is a great tribute to him and the family members he’s dedicated this to,” says Oates.
A 25-year veteran of the Woonsocket Police Department, Lemoine also loves running for the pure joy of it and has taken on Alzheimer’s to pump a bit more meaning into his health regimen.
But there are, perhaps, a couple of other adversaries he’s going up against when he runs the April 17 race. One would be himself: He’s determined to outdo his roughly 4-hour 21-minute finish in the 26.2-mile race last year.
The other would be Mother Nature.
With that in mind, he’s embraced a training regimen more punishing than any other since he began prepping for marathons over five years ago. Instead of a revolving cycle of runs – short, short, long – Lemoine has focused on pushing himself as hard as he can, running long just about all the time.
“I’ve topped 80 miles in a week twice,” he says. “A couple of weeks ago I topped 93 miles in one week.”
He’s been training in earnest for about five months for the upcoming race and has probably racked up about a thousand miles since then, says Lemoine, adding, “I run almost every day.”
It took Lemoine over 20 minutes longer to complete the marathon last year than it did in 2015, and he was feeling pretty beat up when he crossed the finish line. Temperatures in the 70s proved to be a significant setback. He’s banking on the rigorous workouts to pull him through in good shape no matter what the weather turns out to be.
“This year I want to get beyond just crossing the finish line,” says Lemoine. “I want to cross the finish line well.”
To pledge a contribution to Lemoine, visit the Alzheimer’s Team’s fundraising page online at https://www.crowdrise.com/alzheimersassociationboston2017/fundraiser/micha ellemoine.