Marlin Keesler, a Continental cargo service manager at Chicago/O’Hare, is a marathon runner whose sport has changed the lives of every member of his family. I take the whole family with me wherever I run my races, all across the country, in every state, he says. But it’s what my running did for my two kids that’s been the key.
The Keesler children have Asperger’s syndrome, a form of higher-functioning autism that makes learning and reasoning more difficult for them.
Teachers have told us that my son Austin, 15, and my daughter Erin, 12, have benefited more from our travels than from any amount of specialized classroom instruction they’ve received. Hearing that makes putting in all the extra hours at work and training worthwhile, Marlin says
I never would have dreamed that I’d run 50 marathons in 50 states. I started running simply to keep in shape so I could be around for my kids, adds Marlin, who is the author of a book appropriately titled Our Life on the Run A Story of Running 50 Marathons in 50 States: A Family Quest.
Sometimes I look back to that first marathon I entered in Hawaii, he says. When I told my wife, Jeanne, of this ambition she simply said, ‘That’s fine as long as you don’t expect me to run.’ Those were the same words she used later on when I first considered running all 50 states. The Keeslers are donating a portion of the proceeds from the book to raise public awareness of Asperger’s syndrome.
