Former Greeley Central state champion runner Pat Dolan continues to show his competitive drive in battle with ALS

Nearly his entire life, Pat Dolan has run, for so many different reasons.

He’s run to satisfy his competitive instincts.

He’s run as a release from his everyday stresses.

He’s run for the sake of his physical health.

He’s run just for the sheer joy of tightening his shoe strings and feeling completely untethered.

Pat Dolan can no longer run.

Running is one of many things he can no longer do on his own — things most of us take for granted, like moving, eating, talking and breathing.

But it’s the things Dolan still does that define him much, much more than the things he no longer can do.

Dolan, 51, is a 1988 Greeley Central High School graduate. In 1987, he won a state cross country championship under famed coaches Doug Bell and the recently deceased Bob Bormuth.

In 2016, he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord.

The disease causes muscles to waste away and significantly impacts physical function.

Dolan first noticed something was off when he began tripping and falling during his morning runs.

The disease has progressed significantly since Dolan was first diagnosed with it five years ago.

“The most profound impact has been the loss of my independence,” Dolan said in an email. “I am completely dependent upon my care team to do everything from scratching an itch to keeping my airway clear.”

After becoming a champion at Greeley Central, Dolan ran, on scholarship, for the University of Colorado.

He’s lost his ability to run. But he hasn’t lost the youthful enthusiasm and positive energy that came each time he laced up his sneakers.

“The loss of my independence has also brought me closer to my family and friends — not because of the financial support and them spending their vacation at our house, which doesn’t hurt,” Dolan said. “But the realization that you are truly loved and endless lengths they will go to enable me to live life to the fullest.”

Perhaps no one lives life to the fullest any more effectively than Dolan does.

After graduating from college in 1992, Dolan began his career in geographic information systems, as he started working at Greeley engineering firm Miner & Miner — now Telvent, in Windsor.

He now lives in California, and he officially retired in 2018 from a company named Esri, in Redland, Calif.

Despite the toll ALS has taken on him, Dolan still utilizes his skills in GIS.

Through an Eyegaze device that allows him to control a computer or tablet by looking at words or commands on a video screen, Dolan uses his eyes to develop maps to advocate for care, cure and community for people with ALS and other degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and multiple sclerosis.

Initially, Dolan used his skills to identify gaps in care and map locations of ALS clinics.

He’s also mapping the support for the ACT (Accelerating Access to Critical Therapies) for ALS, a bill to establish grant programs to address neurodegenerative diseases.

Through the bill, the Department of Health and Human Services would award grants to eligible entities to facilitate patients’ access to investigational drugs that diagnose or treat ALS.

The Food and Drug Administration would award grants to public and private entities to cover the costs of research and the development of drugs that diagnose or treat ALS and other severely debilitating neurodegenerative diseases.

Dolan said Sen. John Hickenlooper and Rep. Lauren Boebert are the only two Colorado legislators who have yet to cosponsor the ACT for ALS. Dolan and his colleagues are working hard to get Hickenlooper to support the bill.

Dolan’s long-time mentor Doug Bell isn’t the least bit surprised Dolan continues to work, nor is Bell surprised Dolan is so determined to use his talents to help others who are fighting the same battle he is.

“What he has on his plate, nobody can imagine what it’s like,” Bell said. “But I am not surprised he is just battling and trying to help other people. If anybody can win this battle with ALS, it is Pat Dolan. He’s going to fight and fight and fight.”

Whether winning distance races or winning the fight against a disease as physically debilitating as ALS, Dolan has always remained humble.

As much credit as Dolan deserves for all he is able to do while battling ALS, Dolan is the first to defer praise to the crucial support system that surrounds him.

“It starts with having an amazing care team,” Dolan said. “They are the ones who do the daily treatments that keep my lungs clear, joints healthy, and prevent skin break down. But it is my wife, Mara, who enables me to live my life to the fullest each day. She adjusts my care needs as the disease progresses.”

Dolan can go on and on about all that his wife of 23 years means to him. Even though Dolan has always cherished his independence, he’s happy to lean on Mara. They lean on each other.

“She is relentless in finding treatments and therapies that can either slow and/or reverse the progression of ALS,” Dolan said. “And she does this while still working full time. So, I don’t have a choice other than to live each day to the fullest.”

In his decades and decades of coaching up-and-coming runners, Bell said he has rarely encountered anyone with the drive and sheer determination Dolan showcased when race day arrived.

“Pat could turn it on, turn it off,” Bell said. “He could goof off before the start of the race. But when the race started, he could really get focused on what’s at hand. He was tough as nails. He could really get focused on pushing his body. It’s kind of an art form to push your body to the max and not go over the red line.”

Distance running — especially cross country running — certainly isn’t a sport for the weak-minded.

Even though Dolan can no longer run, he still uses all the lessons and skills running has provided him to battle a disease that’s an even bigger obstacle than the longest of runs or the most rugged of courses.

“One of the hardest parts of living with a terminal disease is keeping your ‘head in the game,’” Dolan said. “Running taught me how to be mentally tough, which has enabled me to keep my head in the game of ALS. … Living with ALS is like running a race every day, where you compete against the progression of ALS, which is telling you to stop and give in to the hopelessness of the race.

“But I can hear the voice of Doug Bell, my high school coach, in my head, telling me to pump my arms and accelerate around the corners and not to focus on the pain and misery of the ALS race.”

Bobby Fernandez covers high school sports for the Greeley Tribune. Reach him at (970) 392-4478, by email at bfernandez@greeleytribune.com or on Twitter @BobbyDFernandez.

More information

If you are interested in learning more about ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) and supporting the ALS community, go to iamals.org and teamgleason.org — a pair of nonprofits that perform vital work within the ALS community.