In 2019, Len Brin ran his fastest marathon time, 3 hours, 27 minutes. He missed qualifying for the Boston Marathon by only a few minutes.
But last summer it was a struggle some days for Brin to get out of bed. His heart raced out of control when he tried to run and soon walking and even just standing up became a challenge.
Brin, 52, of Cheshire had COVID-19 in November 2020. He began running again when he felt better but by January he was struggling with symptoms of long-haul COVID, though he didn’t know it at the time.
After eight months of cardiac rehabilitation and spending time with a COVID support group at Gaylord Hospital, Brin ran in the Gaylord Gauntlet 5K Saturday, an obstacle race through the woods around the Gaylord Hospital campus. He scaled walls, went under and over log barriers, down a water slide and crawled in mud. And he ran in between. He finished in 40 minutes, 36 seconds and perhaps the best part was that he felt good after the race.
“I could go home and work now, there’s no brain fog,” said Brin, a professor of mathematics at Southern Connecticut State University. “I’m feeling pretty clear. It’s only been four weeks [of feeling good]. It was 16 months before I even felt close to normal again.
“This is a definite step on the ladder to full recovery, but I’ve got a long way to go. I’m not running any marathons any time soon.”
Brin ran his first marathon in 2013 in Hartford. He tore his meniscus in his knee when he stumbled after dropping a gel packet and trying to pick it up with two miles to go but managed to finish. In 2019 he ran two marathons, in Albany and Philadelphia. He was ready to try to qualify for the Boston Marathon the next year.
The day after Thanksgiving he was playing cards with his brother and got the chills. All the other symptoms hit the next day. After a week he had recovered.
“I was feeling good, I got back out running, I thought, ‘Hey, I’m one of the lucky ones, it’s not going to be a big deal for me,'” he said. “It was over in my mind.”
That’s why when he went out on a 16-mile run in January and his heart started racing and he couldn’t get it to stop, he couldn’t figure out what was wrong. He walked home after seven miles. He tried resting. But he felt worse.
“I never really appreciated how difficult it is to live with limitations,” Brin said. “I never felt limited physically, mentally. I was always, ‘Want to do something? Let’s do it.’
“Not being able to and having to say no to essentially everything and not knowing whether I’d ever be able to get back in the game, it was really demoralizing. It was hard for me to imagine living like that.”
He went to the doctor and had all kinds of tests but got no answers. Brin was on a sabbatical that semester and was supposed to be writing a book, but exhaustion and brain fog limited his work.
Eventually that summer he was diagnosed with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), a condition that affects circulation and causes rapid heartbeat and fatigue when a person is standing up and he began a doctor-approved exercise program.
“It has to do with retraining the heart not to overreact to exercise, basically,” Brin said. “POTS is about having trouble standing and doing things. It starts with laying down exercises – I did three months of rowing, then two months of cycling. I hadn’t walked in five months, never mind running. Then in December I started with some walking and very slow jogging. I wouldn’t say I’ve been running until maybe a month or two ago.”
He also went to the COVID support group at Gaylord, where he found out about the Gauntlet.
“Once he was able to connect with people who went through something similar to what he went through, he was able to realize he wasn’t alone in his journey,” said Jim Russo, a community relations coordinator and co-leader of the COVID support group. “Especially with COVID – doctors are still learning. So they sometimes don’t have the answers. Talking to other folks who went through something similar is very helpful.
“Len was a little different. He was an athlete. He ran marathons. When he first joined the group, he had just started an exercise routine, I remember him doing seated rows, where you pull the cable toward your chest. He was winded. Here he is today, doing the Gauntlet. He’s well on his way. I give the group credit for that. He connected with other people who helped inspire him to keep pushing.”
Brin ran a 5K in Cheshire in April. He was five minutes slower than he had been in the past and was tired for a week after the race and was a little discouraged.
Not Saturday. He felt great, both mentally and physically.
Eventually, he said, he would like to run a marathon again and he has a long-term goal of competing in a half-Ironman triathlon or an Ironman – naturally, depending on how his recovery goes.
But now he has hope, as well as a renewed appreciation of how people live with limitations.
“Now I’m finally at a place where I can think about taking on some of these challenges and doing these things again – it’s almost like a life renewal,” he said. “I don’t think I’m going to take it for granted anymore.
“I was living a life where I felt like I could do anything. I learned that limitations are real. I don’t think I ever appreciated that.”
Lori Riley can be reached at lriley@courant.com.
