10-27-2022 Howard Mag - Flipbook - Page 70
ON HIS
PATH
Ultra runner Tom Green,
now in his 70s, hasn’t let age
or health stop him
BY KAREN NITKIN For Howard Magazine
E
very 100-mile race is different.
Some are hot and humid, others are bitterly cold and windy.
Maybe it’s raining, and the mud is so thick that it threatens to suck
your sneakers right off your feet.
Yet there are constants. There will be daylight and darkness, and a
strange club of determined athletes sharing their pain-fueled camaraderie
and exhausted giddiness.
Columbia resident Tom Green has run more than 60 such ultra
marathon races, and he’s still participating in the grueling sport at age 72,
finishing his most recent 100-miler on Sept. 3.
Even more astonishing: He didn’t stop after an April 2015 accident that
nearly killed him and severely impaired his balance and vision.
Seven years ago, Green was trimming trees in his yard when a branch fell
on him, causing multiple skull fractures, a broken collarbone, and a stroke.
He was in the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center at the University of
Maryland Medical Center for 28 days.
“I’ve just never seen anyone who was that hurt and kept going,” says
David Horton, 72, a longtime friend and fellow distance-running legend, as
well as professor of exercise science at Liberty University in Virginia.
“The common thing, the easy thing, the expected thing, would have
Tom Green, an ultra runner and traumatic brain injury
survivor, runs along Gerwig Lane in Columbia with a running device to
help his balance. PHOTO BY KEVIN RICHARDSON
70
| Fall 2022 | howardmagazine.com