Running Against the Odds: Aaron Burros' 50 Marathons for Mental Health Awareness

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Living the Dream Podcast with Curveball. If you believe, you can achieve.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Welcome to the Live in the Dream with Curveball Podcast. A show where I interview guests that teach, motivate, and inspire. Today's guest has lived a life of faith, resilience, and determination. Aaron Burroughs is an author. And after transforming his health by losing 175 pounds by running. His life changed again in 2015 as he was shot five times while protecting his co-workers. So after facing a life-threatening injury injury uncertainty, he decided to have to get in. So he decided to create 50-50. He decided to ride 50 marathons. So we're going to be talking to Aaron about everything that he's been through and everything that he's up to and gonna be up to. So Aaron, thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_02 1:27

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_02 1:34

Oh, what a loaded question. A little bit about myself. So there's a lot of bit about myself. Um I guess I'll start where I was uh born and raised to the age of 10 before moving to Houston, Texas with my mom. And that was Akron, Ohio, West Side. Uh most people know that it's uh Akron, know of Akron because of LeBron James. And before that it was because of me, I guess. But um I've been in Houston for the majority of my life. I was in Houston where the workplace shooting took place, and I was in Houston until recently, as of January, when I was uh married to my lovely wife, Elena Grace Greenboroughs. And now we're residing in Fort Worth, Texas. I have uh a crew, if you want to call it that, um, kids, a crew of kids and uh some grandchildren. And currently I just turned 55 this past January as well, I was getting married. And the last, I would say, 10 years of my 15-year running journey has really been a living nightmare, a living hell, and something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

Well, before we get on that on that shooting, uh your transformation started long before that. What uh motivated you to make a lifestyle change and lose 175 pounds?

SPEAKER_02 3:24

Well, my running journey started when I was uh probably around eight years old when my brother snitched on me about shoplifting at clicks, you know, getting toys and candy, a little kid with my cousins. And uh I was running for my mama's belt. And then when she caught when she caught me, it was because I ended up going back to her room. She didn't chase too much, and she she uh disciplined me. And after that, she told me that it had been easier had I came and told her and just took my punishment up front. So after that, I stopped running till I was about 40. And I went to the doctor to get my 40th annual checkup health-wise. And during that checkup, I had a prostate exam done, which my prostate and everything came back well and to this day as well. And the doctor told me the only thing wrong with me was that I needed to lose 40 pounds or it was going to lose me. I replied back to the doctor, I didn't have time to lose 40 pounds. I was going to school full time, taking 12 hours plus a class. I ran my own company doing radio, retail, internet, and video marketing. I had kids. I lived in Houston. I probably averaged about 100, 110 miles a day of driving, except on the weekends. And the doctor told me, in no uncertain terms, um, that if I didn't lose the 40 pounds in three months, that uh it was probably gonna lose me. And I told him that uh if I were to die, how much weight would I lose? And his reply back to me was, how soon do you want to die? And so I wasn't ready to die, and so that began my little journey. I basically relocated closer to my job intentionally, where I would have to walk two miles to work in the morning, two miles to work home in the evening. And that's how it all started, along with the Texas heat and humidity, because as long as it was fall and winter and springtime, that that two-mile walk was was beautiful. But as it got closer to June, July, and August, I tell you what, man, you could fry eggs on the sidewalk in Houston. You can rotisserie your chicken on a stick and boil water in a styrofoam cup if needed. And so I began to walk quicker and quicker, and that quick walk be turned into a little jog to where I tried to jog to work 15 minutes, and that 15 minutes, when I was finally able to run 15 minutes, I ended up adding five more minutes to it, five uh 15 turned to 20, 25, 30, 3540, and got up to an hour, and then when I hit an hour, I added 10 minutes to it until I could run an hour and 10 minutes. 10 minutes turned to 20, 2530, 3540 all the way up until I got to two hours. And in that first two months, I lost 40 pounds, um, which was a month sooner than the doctor had given me. I also found running to be relaxing. Um, I also found it to take away stress. I was sleeping better, and I eventually ended up alone with the running, changed my diet. And in the first year, I lost 100 pounds, and then the next four years after that, consecutively, or I shouldn't say consecutively, um in that next four years, I lost a total of 78 pounds. So in the first five years, I lost 178 pounds, which was the average size of a man in the world at 168 pounds. And I ran pretty much everywhere at that point because gas was about five dollars and thirty cents a gallon just for your regular back then, and also my truck had broken down and I needed a new engine, and so I wasn't gonna spend that money on that, and so I decided to pay down my debt and enjoy running, picked up biking, um, and would cycle and run everywhere pretty much, and then eventually I got into uh being asked if I ever thought about running professionally. At first I thought people was just pulling my legs. You know how your friends do, they they try to set you up for failure, but I had people asking me, did I was I a professional trail runner? Um, have I ever thought about running professionally? And then it wasn't until I actually had professional athletes asking me that I even considered it. And then one day I went to church and my pastor asked me, he said, Big man, you ever think about running professionally? And at that point in time, I said to myself, I hear you got. And he told me about a friend of his that will coach their uh their little track workout team uh with uh Fort Ben Fit in Sugarland, Texas. And Andy Stewart was the gentleman's name, and uh he set a meeting up with me and him, him and I, excuse me, and I ended up meeting with him and talking to him and decided that I was gonna run professional and had committed to it and uh signed up for my first race at trail running over Texas, Brazos Bin 100, the 50 miler, and I was on my way, so I thought to a prosperous trail running professional career.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Yeah, and um after that the workplace shooting happened, so tell us about the workplace shooting and uh you know uh getting shot five times and how that happened and what was going through your mind, what else was going on?

SPEAKER_02 12:07

Wow. Um while it was well to put it in perspective, the uh workplace shooting took place two weeks before my benchmark run, where I was going to run uh against some professional athletes. Um I went to work like any other day, and you know, like most of us go to work, get in a car, and you don't think that things are ever going to happen to you. You hear about these things, especially back then. Um it wasn't as prevalent as it is today. So, you know, it's been a little over 10 years. So back then it wasn't as prevalent. Um, and it it did happen, but you didn't hear about it as much because social media didn't play a huge part in reporting the news. And so went to work like any other day. While I'm at work, I hear my boss on a intercom making a plea that he needed all male employees to a certain area of the building for help. And you can hear it in his voice that it was serious. So I was in another part of a of the building, and I ended up going out another door and uh making a beeline across the parking lot to go into the main entrance. It was just at that time as I was approaching that area that I seen a bunch of people come out um really bust through the doors coming out, and I could tell people were fighting for survival, and it was probably around 13 to 15 men, and it was it was a scuffle, a fight for survival. I can definitely tell that. As I got closer, I heard one of the gentlemen, or the criminals, I should call him, he told another guy that was with with him to go get the tool and put in work. Now, as I was approaching, I heard that, and because I grew up on the west side of Akron, Ohio, I've experienced a lot of things and heard a lot of things and witnessed a lot of things. And I knew that that was not a good, a good term. I knew it wasn't gonna be anything nice. So at that point in time, I for a split second, I thought to myself, I'll just turn around and go back to the other side. And then I said to myself, if my coworkers die, I couldn't live with myself, knowing I could have tried to help somebody. And so you're making a split-second decision to do something. So I started trying to get people to get back inside the building before this gentleman came back with whatever weapon he had. Um, and as I was getting people back in the building, I had people giving me, you know, pushback, kickback, because you know, everybody wanted to see a good fight, especially when you got a bunch of men that's fighting, and it's such a large crowd. And so as I began to pull people off of the crowd, telling them to get to the building, get to the building, the gentleman that went and got the actual tool to come back and put in work was on his way back and started shooting. Um I began to then have to pick up. I was told this by my boss. He said, I didn't know you was that strong. Um, and I later I talked to him and I said, Well, what you mean? He said, You picked up three grown men and body slammed everybody to the concrete. Now, I didn't realize it that I had done that, but I did. And what it caused was one of the assailants that was holding like the three guys, a security guy and two other employees. He had them locked up with him. It caused them to break apart, two other guys. Well, he was holding on still to the security guy, and the security guy had one of his arms trying to prevent him from going into a pocket, a waistband, or something to get a weapon. And in doing so, I ended up getting the security guy apart, holding the guy's hand, getting the security guy free, and I had the other guy by his neck with my left arm, and I was pulling him back. And the gentleman, or the criminal, I should say, the other assailant that went and got the two to put in work, he ended up, he was shooting people as they ran away. But once I got uh everybody loose and only had the the what I call the the ring leader, the one the guy that told him what to do, he shifted his focus on just me. And when the guy that I was holding told him to shoot me, I thought to myself, you idiot, how you gonna shoot me? And I'm like, I had this guy in front of me. I had my arm around his neck and holding his hand to keep him from getting whatever weapon he was trying to get, but he was in front of me. The other guy was probably about six feet away, and he aimed the rifle and he shot me in my upper left torso. When he shot me, the gentleman that I was holding, he hit butted me backwards and in an attempt to buck me off of him, but I had him by the throat, so I pulled him down with me because I I thought to myself, if if I fall by myself, this guy is just gonna unload on me. And so I pulled him down, and he was on top of me while my back was on the ground, and the guy walked up on us, and he told me to let his N-I-D-G-A go. And I let him go and I put my hands up while I was on my back, my feet were bent, and I tried to convince them to just go on about the business. Nobody's, you know, at this point in time, I'm like, nobody's dead. Uh, just going about your business. You can hear the police coming. Um, the guy stood up, he kind of like straightened out his clothes and stuff, and he looked at me and he looked at the other guy and told the guy to kill me. And so the guy stepped up closer, pointed the rifle at me, and he said, I bet you next time somebody tells you to let the NIAA G A go, you will. And just in that instance, right then and there, it seemed like everything just slowed down, like it was slow motion. And I remember thinking to myself, Lord, is this what it's like before somebody murders you? Because I had a peace that I can't explain, I had a calm that I can't explain. And I began to think about my kids. Who was gonna tell them that their dad got murdered at work, how each one of them was gonna respond, who was gonna help them through it. I thought about who would need more help than the other, and as I was thinking about this, my attention was drawn to the to the rifle, to the trigger finger of the shooter, and it was as though I could see him pulling his finger back ever so slowly, and when I seen his finger go back and the trigger start being pulled, the Holy Spirit of God told me to roll over, and I rolled over, and the moment I rolled over, I heard the shot, and that bullet, which would have been center mass, which would have gone dead into my chest, hit behind on the ground, and then the Holy Spirit told me, jump to your feet and run. And I hopped to my feet and I ran. And I remember thinking about my football coach, the the running back coach at the uh high school that I played. I was a quarterback, and when I would hand the ball off, he would tell them, stay low, hit the hole hard, don't give the defense a big target to hit. And so I was thinking about that, and so I stayed low and I was running hard, and the guy was chasing after me, and he shot me four times from behind. As I was running, as I was running, um, I recalled thinking to myself, I'm gonna hit the door, and either I'm gonna smack dab into it, or my coworkers are gonna open it in enough time for me to get in, shut it, in order to keep this guy from running in behind me. So I was yelling, open the door, open the door. And we had those sliding doors at our job, like you know, when you go to the emergency room, how The door slide and they shut. And so it has a switch that is an emergency switch to keep it closed so people can't walk up and open it. And so I remember I was running real fast and I heard my boss yell, open the door, open the door, and they opened it just enough for me to get through, shut it, locked it again, and the guy ran into it, and he was bamming with the rifle against the glass, and he was yelling at them to open a door so he could finish killing me. And he was pointing the rifle at me through the glass. And my adrenaline was was running. At the time. I sat down, and the ambulance came with the police, and they came in, and they asked about everybody, and I let them know that I was shot. There were several people that had been grazed with bullets. I believe the security guard got hit with a bullet, and um they ended up asking me to take my clothes off so that they could examine my body to see where if the where the entry wounds were. And I remember kind of like making a little joke because it's a crowd of people. And I told the the the uh emergency response, I looked around, I said, uh, I don't know if you really want me to make all these women happy. And he kind of like looked at me like, what? And then he looked around and he's he's sorry, oh, he's like, Well, let's take him out and uh him and the other guy, the security guy, out into the uh ambulance and check them there. So we went out into the ambulance and I took all my clothes off. Security guy did the same, and they were looking, and they couldn't see any any entry wounds on me. And um I remember one of the medics asking, How do I know I was shot? And I told him, I feel the metal burning in me. And so they kept looking. Someone was taking my blood pressure, and the guy read my blood pressure, it was 268 over 200. And then another guy found an entry room to the bullet that went into my right glutus maximus that I still have in there today. I had another one that was in the soft tissue area of my glute that was surgically removed. I have a fragment on my left side in the in the um soft tissue area. I had a bullet that entered, traveled down my pelvis, pelvic area, um, missed my femoral artery by one centimeter. And literally, when I was in the hospital at the emergency room, I was complaining about an irritation on my inner groin area on my left side, and the nurse was examining me. He literally pulled the bullet fragment, it was sticking out. He could he pulled it out with his fingers and held it up. And they sent me back to get an x-ray of my leg. I had a I think I had an MRI or a CAT scan. One of them you can't do with metal, but I ended up having uh an x-ray of my leg because they wanted to make sure there wasn't a mobile.

unknown 28:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:21

The MRI is it? Okay.

[Ad] PodMatch

SPEAKER_02 28:23

And so um they did the x-ray, and then when the nurse came back in, that's when he told me the radiologist said that it missed my femoral artery by one centimeter, and had it hit it, I would have bled out before the ambulance even got there.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

Wow. So uh in a little bit of time that that we still have. Uh let's talk about uh the 50. I call it the 50-50 goal. You know, kinda kinda tell us how you created that and did you did you uh achieve it?

(Cont.) Running Against the Odds: Aaron Burros' 50 Marathons for Mental Health Awareness

SPEAKER_02 29:02

So I was in a deep dark place. And I needed, it was a miserable existence. And I needed to do something to get my life back, and all I can think about is when someone goes into cardiac arrest, how they shot the heart in order to get it back to pumping and catch the rhythm. And I thought to myself, there's I need to do something because the medicine, um, I had gained back uh a total of 109 pounds uh of the 178 I had lost, my depression from um I had runners depression, then I had depression from the PTSD, I had depression from gaining all that weight back, being back over 300 pounds, and um it was just a miserable existence. So I I came up with this quest to do 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 weeks by trying to raise $50,000 for St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. And I started it in 2019, planning it and everything, and then unfortunately wasn't able to do it because of COVID. So I had to put it on pause for about a year, year and a half until 2021 or 2022. And what that did for me is it forced me to get out of the cave that I was in from the depression. It forced me to interact with people because I didn't have any trust in humanity after what I went through, and it it forced me to focus on someone else that was in more dire need than myself, which for me was either children or the elderly. And so as I was doing that and crisscrossing around the country, it forced me to stay focused on those three goals. And keep in mind, I was experiencing sleep deprivation too. I experienced sleep deprivation for almost seven and a half years straight. And one thing I learned is that you could die from lack of sleep. So it was a serious, a serious situation, and um that's what I ended up doing. As I went around the country running, people got win of my story from one race to another, and it ended up growing from me telling my story at a race to the local paper wanting to do a story to being interviewed by a local television station, to being interviewed on Fox, to my story being uh carried by CNN to when I did the New York City Marathon to them just putting around, putting it around uh not only nationwide, but worldwide. Um Runners World magazine magazine, excuse me, the Canadian Running Magazine, and then podcasts. Uh I've done uh a several dozen podcasts over the last um five years here. And I tell people the book, I didn't write the book, the book wrote me. Because it came together in pieces as I was going doing this quest, and then it was put together with all the different interviews that I had did with all the questions and what was happening. So it went in chronological order of me running the race. And I warned people if they read it, it's gonna read them more than they read it. It's a book that's gonna transform you, challenge you, make you think, make you dig deeper about yourself, about your goals, about your life, ask you some tough questions. Um, and because that's what I was doing. And so it's really like people have told me it's like them being with the being on the race with me, them traveling with me from week to week. Um I've had grown men that I've met, total strangers, that have just walked up to me and just motioned their hands. They couldn't even form the words for a hug. And I I hugged them, embraced them. I've wept and cried with men who have been in Afghanistan for 10 years to Iraq, to police officers, to first responders, to everyday Joes who have gone through something traumatic. Telling people that I've in the last two and a half years, going on three years to September, I've hugged more men and cried with more men than I have ever in my entire life. And it's been very, very challenging running for your mental health and well-being, because all the stigmas are true. And it's those stigmas that keep us from men getting the mental help that we need, the mental health help that we need, whether it's the military, whether it's police, first responder, whether you've been through something traumatic. Um I've heard it all. I've heard all the, oh, he must not be a real man. I've heard real men don't cry. Oh, he must be weak. Uh he must be broken, something's wrong with him. I've I've heard it all, but I was in such mental anguish and pain and emotional on top of the physical that it didn't matter to me what people said. And I heard it from family, I heard it from friends, I even heard it at church when I would go out and cry at the altar. And you just know getting around it. But at the same time, I try to talk about it because I know what it's like to be there. And I've had stories of success where I've been able to rejoice with people and celebrate with them, and I've had stories where people have committed suicide, men have committed suicide. And so I'm committed to sharing my story and raising awareness for charitable organizations. So I tell people if you can get in contact with me on Facebook, Aaron Burroughs, or on Instagram, at the Running Servant, connect with me, send me an email, Aaron Burroughs at Yahoo.com. And you want to get a copy of my book for yourself or a loved one, a first responder or a stranger. I'd I give my book away to those who are willing to make a donation of any size, especially when I'm at events. Um, but I want to get the story out there. I want people to get to help all people, but especially men. It's not a badge of honor that we will rather commit suicide than to look weak to the women and our children. And I come across enough men that have told me that they were a day away or the day of from committing suicide. And I know that I know that there's hope, and I know that they can live and thrive again, and that's the journey that I'm on. I went from a miserable existence to an existence. I'm working on living again, and eventually I'm going to get back to thriving.

SPEAKER_01 37:47

Absolutely, and I definitely uh appreciate you for sharing the story with my listeners. Uh are there any other other upcoming projects that you're working on that listeners need to be aware of uh as we close out?

SPEAKER_02 38:01

No, this right now is not only me healing, but helping. Um, if anybody wants me to come speak to them, speak to a group, speak to an organization, I'll I'll fly across the world to speak to one person if it means helping them, saving their life where they don't commit suicide. I'm just committed to this. I know what it's like to be in that desperate situation. And um I'm going to be running the Sydney Marathon coming up for an organization called No More Stigmas. And you can go to their page, their giving page, and find me, Aaron Burroughs, and donate. Or if you donate, just uh let them know you're donating because of Metal Monday and Aaron Burroughs so that my fundraiser gets that credit. And I'll be traveling the globe more next year. I'll be doing some ultra tries with the Ultra X company out of Europe over in the UK. I'll be doing uh the Kenya Wildlife Marathon, and hopefully I get into Cape Town Marathon as well next year. Uh entered in for the ballot, but if if I don't get in through the ballot, I could probably find a charity, a charitable cause. But I'll I'll be around the globe as well as here in the U.S. and Canada. Uh matter of fact, I'll be in Canada at the Canadian Army Tim Mowler in September, fundraising as well, and giving away autographed copies of my book to show my appreciation.

SPEAKER_01 39:57

All right, ladies and gentlemen. So y'all tap in with Aaron if you or somebody you know is in need of help and uh having issues with their mental health, you know, check out that book, donate to his fundraiser for Sydney, and uh donate to him and uh get a copy of that book. Mental health is such a big issue in our world today. So we want to do everything we can to get Aaron's message out there. So please follow Ray Review, share this episode to everybody you know. And also for more information on the Living a Dream with Curveball Podcast, visit www.curveball337.com and share the website of the show to everybody you know. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. And thank you for being so brave to share your story, and thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_02 40:49

I appreciate it, Curtis. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 40:53

For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, visit www.curveball337.com. Until next time, keep living the dream.