ATLANTA — For thousands hitting the pavement this Fourth of July, for the Peachtree Road race is a tradition.
But for one metro Atlanta man, it’s also a yearly reminder of a second chance at life.
“I couldn’t walk up a flight of stairs without catching my breath,” Richard Balfour told Channel 2’s Karyn Greer.
The energy of the Peachtree Road Race is electric with tens of thousands running through the heart of Atlanta.
For Balfour, every step carries a deeper meaning.
“I was 350 pounds, 340, 350. I don’t have an exact number, and my doctor had told me that I had, well, I had a high blood pressure, high cholesterol. And then she told me, she said, you are primed for either a stroke, a heart attack, or both,” he said.
For him at that weight, running even a mile felt impossible, leaving him discouraged.
“My first ever 5K I did was in Kennesaw, one of their series, and it was so slow that I actually didn’t get a time because it was beyond their time. And it was heart-crushing because I tried my best and it’s almost like it didn’t count,” Balfour said.
Balfour says his wife had successful gastic bypass surgery, perhaps that would he would need to at this point save his life.
“I had the sleeve, the gastric sleeve surgery. And yeah, it’s just been life-changing. And as part of the recovery, they want you to walk after surgery,” Balfour said.
He says that walking turned to running. He ran his first Peachtree Road Race after his surgery, his wife holding a sign supporting him along the way.
And now, three years later, he looking forward to running in the worlds largest 10-kilometer road race again.
“I’m probably gonna cry,” he said. “Every race I go to, I walk up to the start line, and there’s a moment where you look around and you’re with all these, what I call real runners, or real athletes, right, the kids. And I’m like, ‘Wait a minute, I belong. I actually earned this.’”
Balfour has turned his transformation into a personal milestone, and he said hopes his journey inspires others to realize it’s never too late to change your life.
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