Chris Curto - Life Lessons       

In the current issue of M&B, Helen Ward's article, "Curto Runs Boston: A Loop That Must Be Closed" chronicles Chris Curto's journey of beating testicular cancer. Chris teaches at The College of New Jersey and is the track and cross-country coach. We asked Chris to reflect on his life the past year and share with us some lessons he learned along the way.  

This April will be my third Boston Marathon. It will be my sixth marathon overall. The 2013 Boston Marathon meant something deeply personal to me, even before the tragic events that struck that afternoon. I had been diagnosed with cancer the previous summer and had finished chemotherapy in mid-February. Cramming in my marathon training - which consisted of only four long runs - in the few weeks before April 15 was a feat that I'm not quite sure I can comprehend, even in hindsight. It certainly wasn't my fastest marathon; in fact, it was my slowest. But 30 minutes slower than my personal record was more than I could have imagined just a few months - or even weeks - prior to the race.    

I learned a lot in the time between my diagnosis and the marathon, and what I came to realize was multi-fold:  

• I have so much appreciation for how much distance running has played such an important role in my life;
• I learned how important my family and friends are when tough times hit;
• I came to realize that many of my friends are in my life as a direct result of running cross-country and track at The College of New Jersey;
• and, I learned that my track life is what prepared me for the adversity encountered in my real life.

I have a tendency to downplay both my struggles and accomplishments. There are plenty of people who have gone through worse than I have. There are plenty of people who have achieved greater than I have. But through my experiences, and through the self-reflection required for a series of interviews I did with Helen Ward for her article in M&B, I've realized that it's neither the struggles nor the accomplishments that define runners. It's the process of trying to overcome the adversity. It's setting the goals, whether or not those goals are achieved. It's striving towards goals and working to clear the hurdles in the way that define runners. We may or may not always get there. We may fall along the way. But what makes the sport great is that runners get back up.

That's also what makes the lessons of the sport applicable to other areas of life. Personal, professional, medical, or otherwise, one needs to have a goal to work toward. Setting the goal, and pursuing all the other intermediate goals that are required to get there, is the first step to completing the journey. The journey could be almost anything. It's the journey from Main Street in Hopkinton to Boylston Street in Boston. It's the journey from a hospital bed to my own. It's the journey from a freshman-year time trial to NCAA Championships.

All of these journeys demand setting an ambitious goal and working very hard to achieve it. None of these journeys is undertaken alone. The other lesson from a sport that can be largely individual is that of teamwork. I have been blessed to be a part of some outstanding teams. While running for and later coaching the track and cross-country teams at The College of New Jersey, I saw packs of runners come together to achieve results greater than their individual efforts. These experiences have also led to lifelong friendships beyond athletics. The importance of those friendships became very clear when I was recovering from surgery at Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia in the fall of 2012. Among my visitors were former teammates, former coaches, and current and former athletes whom I've had the good fortune of coaching. Their support, which came in many forms, reminded me that I was not alone, and that went a long way in helping me recover.

So what does this all mean? I ran a marathon after having a tough time with surgery and chemotherapy. I ran sub-three hours after about six weeks of training. I really don't know what it means, anymore than I understand why I had cancer at age 31, or why two young men would want to kill and maim spectators at the Boston Marathon. But at least the logic and meaning of running is more clear. The marathon gave me something on which I could focus. It gave me a defined goal. When something threatens to tear apart everything you thought you knew, you have to fall back on what is important to you. It's what I learned after my dad passed away when I was in college. I ran. It's what I learned again after my best friend lost his dad in the south tower of the World Trade Center. We ran. It's what was reinforced after getting back on my feet following surgery and chemo. I ran towards a goal.

In some ways, the lessons I learned from dealing with cancer and getting back up to run a marathon were those I've known all along: goals and teamwork. Nevertheless, they are so fundamental to sport and to life that they bear repeating. Three of us broke three hours that day in Boston. For my two friends, it was their personal records. For me, it was a comeback race. I can truly say we did this together. Regardless of how fast we ran or if we achieved our individual goals, training for and running this race with my friends gave meaning back to me that had nearly been lost only months before. The importance of friendship and supporting each other was made all the more poignant shortly afterwards as the smoke cleared on Boylston Street. And for that reason, we'll be back again this April.