Disease ends quest for strong-willed runner
By Glenn Miller
Originally posted on September 23, 2007


Barney Thomas will never finish his quest to run marathons on all seven continents.

The former Fort Myers resident’s final marathon was in Antarctica, where on a February 2005 day he ran despite symptoms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

He knew he had it. He knows it is fatal. It’s the same disease that killed his father. Yet, he ran. Thomas persevered through 18 of the 26 miles, slogging up the Collins Glacier with his right arm hanging limply and useless at his side before he had to give up.

Thomas, 56, now lies in a hospice in Bay City, Mich., unable to speak or feed himself, a hostage to a relentless neurodegenerative disorder.

A man who once could zip through the Edison Festival of Light 5K in 19 minutes or so now can’t move. The former Fort Myers Little League coach watches his alma mater, Notre Dame, play football games on television. His wife, Debra, and brother, Kurt, maintain vigils, sharing precious moments.

Debra has been taking care of the basics.

“I didn’t think I could wipe his nose or fanny or brush his teeth or change his clothes,” Debra Thomas said.

She learned she could.

Thomas is a civil engineer by trade but has always been an athlete at heart.

“He just loved to run,” said Fort Myers resident Mike Pemberton, who was a training partner of Thomas. “If he ran, he wanted somebody to run with.”

Pemberton wasn’t surprised to hear Thomas ran in Antarctica and didn’t tell other competitors about his disease.

“That would be like him,” Pemberton said. “I never heard him complain except he wanted to go faster.”

Fort Myers American Little League president Donny Overholser remembers a coach who was good with kids.

“Just that he was one of those truly even-keel personalities where he just went out and taught the kids,” Overholser said. “Always made it fun. He wasn’t the type to put a lot of pressure on the kids to have to succeed. He just made the game of Little League pure and fun while teaching the fundamentals of the game.”

One of his team moms was Barbara Deming, whose daughter, Lisa, played on his team. Deming recently visited Thomas.

“He cried when I talked about old things,” Deming said.

Deming worried she would sob while visiting.

“I held up until I walked out and then I flooded the sidewalk,” Deming said.

Thomas’ triumphs and ordeal are being documented on the Ann Arbor Track Club Web site, aatrackclub.org. Thomas, who moved north in 1999 after 18 years or so in Fort Myers, and a Michigan friend and fellow runner, Hal Wolfe, worked together on a four-part life story, “Barney Thomas & the Last Marathon.”

Thomas was diagnosed in September of 2002, when he was 52. His father also contracted ALS at 52.

This is how Thomas started his story: “Hello, my name is Barney Thomas. I’m from Michigan, and I’m a runner.”

On the track club site, Thomas wrote about his goal of running the continents. He also wrote about the early symptoms.

“I started having trouble with my right hand,” Thomas wrote. “I noticed that my grip felt a little funny initially. It seemed like I had a hard time making a fist, which is the normal hand position when distance running.”

That is how it started. But it didn’t stop Barney Thomas.

He trained. He ran. When he could do neither?

“He continued to come to workouts even when he could no longer run,” Wolfe said. “He’d show up with a walker and have dinner with some of the guys afterwards.”
Now, he can’t even do that.

“He can’t talk to me,” Wolfe said. “When I tell him jokes, he still smiles.”

As his 56th birthday, Sept. 9, neared, Debra wondered what to get her husband.

“She asked what should I get the man who has everything,” Wolfe said. “I said get him a new pair of shoes. That got a laugh out of him.”

Thomas has persevered. Wolfe has been in contact with a New Zealand runner who ran the Antarctica race.

“He could not use his arm or hold it up,” Wolfe said. “It dangled at his side. He had to go through hardships. Nobody on that boat (to Antarctica) knew he had ALS, even his roommate from New Zealand. He said, ‘I knew he had a bum arm but he was just one of the mates.’ ”

The mate with a death sentence, whose body was failing him even as he slogged up the Collins Glacier in his last marathon.

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