BOSTON (CBS) — We know runners from across the country and all around the world will come to Boston to compete in the marathon. Each one has something to prove, including a very special man from Arkansas, who is getting ready to finish what he started one year ago.
Jeff Glasbrenner knows one moment can change everything.
“My bucket list was definitely the Boston Marathon.”
In 2013, Glasbrenner ran the race and was at mile 25 when the bombs went off. Decades earlier, an accident changed his life. In Boston, the accident may have saved it.
“I stepped in a pot hole. And, so, I opened up a sore in my leg. And so, I had to take my leg off to kind of check it out,” he said.
Glasbrenner had lost his right leg in a farming accident 33 years ago.
Adjusting his prosthesis kept him from the finish line. This year, he’ll be back.
“I know that if I don’t go back that they win. And, I’m not going to let a couple of bad guys, you know, steal my finish line.”
He’ll finish what he started on Monday and he has company – Chris Madison and Andre Slay.
“It’s no way I could have dreamt of anything, of anything of this magnitude in my whole entire life,” Slay said.
Slay lost his right leg in a motorcycle accident. He had never run a race, forget about a marathon. Neither had Madison, who lost his right leg in a boating accident. Both were heavier but then a chance encounter.
“I’m 39-years-old. This whole pursuit of the Boston Marathon? That’s a goal in itself. But, it’s given me so many opportunities to experience things that I hadn’t gotten to experience since I was 10-years-old,” Madison said.
The three have spent the past year pushing themselves and each other to new limits. They got new legs and have put in hundreds of hours of sweat. Glasbrenner has been at their side every step of the way.
“It’s been an amazing journey, kind of mentoring them and coaching them to get the to the start line, because the start line is all about those guys. But, the finish line is all about me.”
It’s a journey of three stranger, so different, yet the same.
“You look at us and you see the smiles on our face. You see the hard work that went into it. But, that day is going to be amazing, especially when we cross that finish line all together at the same time,” Glasbrenner said.
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