Senior Sam Troutt strives to finish this marathon in three hours, that puts him at about seven minutes per mile. Troutt feels it around mile eight. He’s unable to keep water down and his muscles begin to tense up. Troutt continues with his goal in mind. He begins to feel lightheaded, a burn dances up his chest and he becomes unable to breathe. Despite his determination, Troutt stops at mile 14 and calls for a medic, because he knows that he cannot finish this race and he will have to postpone his dream of running in the Boston Marathon. He fades in and out of consciousness as he’s taken to the medical tent.
Troutt recently bounced back from a knee injury that ended his cross country season earlier than he would have liked. After months of preparation, Troutt ran in the Dallas Marathon on Dec. 9, hoping to qualify for the Boston Marathon. Troutt had to stop his run a little over halfway through due to medical concerns.
“There are races where you have bad races and everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong. That’s what happened to me,” Troutt said. “It’s really weird to have that feeling of ‘OK, this is me passing out,’ and knowing that you’re not going to understand what’s going on.”
About 15 minutes after he finished running, his body temperature dropped to about 94 degrees, and his pulse was still racing. He remembers the medical staff putting an IV in his arm and making him eat, but the rest of the experience he can’t comprehend. Troutt has extreme gratitude for the medical staff who helped him.
“I’m so thankful for all the med staff there,” Troutt said. “They did amazing. Thankfully, they had enough equipment there to get me back to where I needed to be. At mile 14, I was actually begging [a medical worker] to let me try and keep going and I’m thankful she didn’t let me keep going because that could have been bad. I probably would’ve been laid on the road somewhere passed out.”
Troutt said he plans to recover for about two weeks before training for track season. After track season, Troutt plans to jump right back into preparing for and running marathons.
“I was really disappointed that I couldn’t finish, but I’m already looking for new [marathons] to sign up for because I’m doing marathons,” Troutt said.
