Kenyan lost his feet after 56 hours in cold, but now he’s racing again
Living in Orlando and running on blades, Cheseto finished New York Marathon in less than 3 hours
Marko Cheseto was passed out, oblivious to his surroundings and how he was feeling.
He was numb, and not just from the frigid Alaskan cold. In truth, Cheseto had been that way for a while, ever since his cousin committed suicide in February 2011.
William Ritekwiang wanted to speak with Cheseto before he died. Cheseto, a student and runner at the University of Alaska Anchorage, was working. He was too busy to carve out a few minutes to talk.
That conversation never occurred.
Cheseto grew up with Ritekwiang in Kenya, and now all he was left with were memories and pangs of guilt. They were inescapable. Antidepressants helped, but Cheseto said he overdosed on his medication when he went out for a run that November in weather best suited for huddling in front of fireplaces or being tucked beneath a blanket or two.
He said the temperature was in the single digits. It was snowing. Not dressed appropriately, Cheseto was exposed.
By the time he came to and wandered into a hotel for help, 56 hours had passed.
“It was not a pleasant story to be told,’’ Cheseto said. “‘Your legs are going to be amputated.’ I never thought I was going to run again, and when I was told I was going to lose my legs, I was still very disoriented, but I was able to process it and realize how serious it was.’’
As Cheseto struggled during his recovery — his legs were amputated below the knee because of circulation issues brought on by
frostbite and gangrene — he clung to any sense of normalcy. But was that possible? Running wasn’t the only thing that defined Cheseto, but it was a primary marker.
He was the first Alaska Anchorage athlete to be chosen the Great Northwest Athletic Conference runner of the year three times, was a cross country All-American and graduated with school records in the 1,500, 5,000 and 10,000 meters
“Marko was always a very friendly, outgoing, positive, happy, obviously extremely talented young man,’’ Anchorage coach Mike Friess said. “Certainly encountered a very, very rough patch, and that was concerning to all of us, but he pulled out of it and turned his life back into what it was prior to his depression.’’
Cheseto, 35, completed the first marathon of his life nearly seven years after his harrowing experience. He finished the New York City Marathon in 2 hours, 52 minutes, 33 seconds last month.
Cheseto relocated to Central Florida in June with his wife, Amanda, and three daughters. What brought them here can be found in a nondescript row of medical offices tucked onto a side street in south Orlando.
The entrance to Prosthetic & Orthotic Associates is framed by two beige columns. Its 23,000 square feet of work space is just off Orange Avenue, across the street from a bank and not far from a kickboxing gym. Those who come here are fighters, too, because all have encountered setbacks.
Like Cheseto, they refuse to stay down.
“Every time I see [Marko] run, it motivates me to go out and run some more, train some more and better myself,’’ said Ricky Shultz, who has done two marathons despite losing part of his left leg in a lawnmower accident when he was 2.
Cheseto came down to Orlando for the first time in 2014 or ’15 because the alignment of his prosthetic was off.
“The first time they checked the socket, I knew I was in the right place,’’ said Cheseto, who resides in Clermont. “It was like, ‘Yes, this is what I was looking for.’’’
Cheseto now works at Prosthetic & Orthotic Associates. He laminates prosthetic sockets, provides technical assistance and offers moral support.
Cheseto helped develop the socket on which the running blades he used in New York were attached.
“He wanted to know every aspect of it because if we’re trying to do something that hasn’t been done and in a time that hasn’t been done, he really wanted to be all in,’’ said Stan Patterson, founder of Prosthetic & Orthotic Associates.
That time is two hours in the marathon — a record for a 26.2-mile race, able-bodied or not. Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge set the record (2:01:39) at the Berlin Marathon in September.
Cheseto, who thinks the two-hour threshold is breakable, grew up in the Kenyan town of Kapenguria, the third-oldest of 12 children. Their father was a mason and carpenter, and their mother was a housewife. The family farmed, raising cows, goats and sheep.
Cheseto earned a teaching degree and was instructing students in first through eighth grades — “all subjects’’ — when he said a coach from Texas Tech recruited him. By the time he completed his paperwork, though, he said no scholarship money remained, so the coach referred him to a peer at Iona College in New York.
That coach applied for an assistant’s job at Anchorage. Cheseto was on his way.
Cheseto arrived for the first time in Alaska in August 2008. It was 8 p.m.
“They said we are landing in Anchorage, and it’s still sunny out,’’ he said. “How come the sun is still out at 8? In Kenya, we have 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness. By 6, the sun is down so it was a strange thing to see the sun up in the middle of the sky.’’
Cheseto also never had experienced snow. Believing it formed on the ground, he did not realize it fell from the sky.
He eventually settled into a comfortable routine. His cousin’s suicide changed that.
“Sometimes I think about [how my life would be different], but I normally do not dwell on that so much, because I don’t want to focus on the past,’’ Cheseto said. “I’m not also forgetting what I went through.’’
Friess, the Anchorage coach, recalled the first time he visited Cheseto in the hospital.
“I go rushing into the emergency room, and the moment I saw him, it was like the old Marko was back,’’ Friess said. “The fog had lifted. I can’t explain it. I really can’t, but he was the same young man prior to his depression.’’
Since his amputations, Cheseto has served as a graduate assistant coach for the cross country and track teams at Anchorage and said he has worked with the Boys & Girls Club and the American Lung Association in Alaska.
He earned undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. He married and became a father. He qualified for the 2016 Paralympics in Rio but did not travel to Brazil because of logistical and financial reasons.
Cheseto became a U.S. citizen on Nov. 6.
“I don’t have any regrets about where I am,’’ Cheseto said. “Even when I had my biological feet, there were some moments when I was not satisfied. … It is always where you are in your life. You have to appreciate it.’’
Cheseto plans to run the Disney World Half Marathon in January and has qualified for the Chicago Marathon next fall.
“I’ve worked with several Para-athletes, and I know there are a lot of things they have to overcome,’’ said Cheseto’s coach, Michellie Jones. “Marko just has this awesome attitude that what happened to him happened, and he still has a passion for running.
“He’s trying to continue to live that running dream.’’
On a recent afternoon, Cheseto was running on an indoor field a short walk from his office.
A youth soccer team practiced nearby. Its coach noticed Cheseto and lamented that his players were not employing proper footwork while a man without any feet was running comfortably, at ease with himself.
“Sometimes I’m still surprised about how far I have made it in life successfully,’’ Cheseto said. “It has taught me that in life, as long as you do the right things, always remind yourself that you will make it. I’m sure you’ll make it.’’
“Sometimes I think about [how my life would be different], but I normally do not dwell on that so much, because I don’t want to focus on the past. I’m not also forgetting what I went through.” Marko Cheseto