Chernobyl Survivor Goes for Two-Peat in Boston Marathon Wheelchair Race
If Alosha O’Brien loses any sleep Sunday night, it’s not only because he’s feeling pre-marathon jitters.
“You can’t sleep because you’re so excited,’’ O’Brien said.
It’s a feeling he’s starting to know well. On Marathon Monday, O’Brien will make his second 26.2-mile trek in the Boston Marathon. He’ll be pushed in his wheelchair by friend Craig Welton, the Massachusetts state director of Best Buddies, as part of that organization’s charity team.
About two years ago, Welton asked O’Brien if he could push him as part of a wheelchair duo in the 2014 Boston Marathon. O’Brien agreed, and the two were soon training 10-milers in Newton to get ready.
“We just kind of got into it,’’ O’Brien, 30, said.
During their first months of training, Welton and O’Brien borrowed a wheelchair from Dick and Rick Hoyt, the famous father-son duo that has run more than 1,000 races. The Hoyts gifted them a green wheelchair (nicknamed “The Hulk’’), and a blue one that’s not yet named.
While they train, O’Brien said, “I’m just in charge of the music,’’ picking upbeat tunes like “Eye of the Tiger,’’ which he cues while Welton pushes him uphill. Besides his role as motivator and DJ, he is also in charge of holding onto the pair’s water supply.
Monday will mark Welton and O’Brien’s fourth marathon together; they’ve run Manchester, New Hampshire, twice, and Boston once.
O’Brien has come a long way to take up his love of long mileage. He was born in Belarus in 1984. When he was 11 months old, his biological mother abandoned him in the street, and after that, he grew up in an orphanage. O’Brien, who suffers from juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, was in the hospital when the Chernobyl nuclear disaster occurred in nearby Ukraine in 1986. He said he believes that the radiation from the disaster affected his growth and worsened his arthritis.
He was part of a group of children brought to the United States by the Chernobyl Children’s Project to seek treatment for the effects of the disaster. In 1997, he arrived in Milton, where he lived with a host family.
When he first came to the U.S., O’Brien said he could walk without help, but over time — and after several surgeries, including a double hip replacement — he’s had to use crutches and a wheelchair to get around.
His host family enrolled him in the Milton public school system, where he met Sam O’Brien, whose family later adopted him just before he was about to return home.
“Without them’’ — brother Sam, sisters Sara and Lily, mom Paula, and dad Ed, who passed away in 2012 — “I wouldn’t be here right now,’’ he said. “I’m just so lucky and happy that I have my family and friends beside me, guiding me.’’
He joined Best Buddies in high school and is now heavily involved in the organization, which “creates opportunities for one-to-one friendships, integrated employment and leadership development for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities,’’ according to its website.
Best Buddies job coaches later helped him find work at a movie theater, Target, and, currently, Kel & Partners, a PR firm where he has worked as office coordinator since 2011. He loves his job and was named the Best Buddies Employee of the Year in 2012.
O’Brien is also an ambassador for the organization, and is the captain of Team Best Buddies, which is training for the marathon alongside Team Coalition, another group raising money for charity. On Saturday night, O’Brien is giving a speech at the Marathon Coalition Pasta Party at the Park Plaza Hotel to help “pump them up before the race,’’ he said.
So far, Team Best Buddies, which is sponsored by New Balance, has raised $55,000; by Monday, when all the runners meet their minimum, they will be at $65,000, though they could exceed that amount. A video featuring O’Brien will be posted on the company’s social media pages as well.
Despite the setbacks he’s faced, O’Brien refuses to see the negative — and refuses to feel sorry for himself.
“I don’t want them to feel bad because of what happened to me,’’ O’Brien said. “I’m like anybody else.’’
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