The patients that walk through the halls of Manning Family Children’s are fighting battles unimaginable to most. No one knows or sees those struggles and challenges more than the hospital’s President and CEO Lou Fragoso. This month, Fragoso is participating in the Leadville Trail 100 Run, one of the oldest and toughest ultramarathons in the world. He’s dedicated each of the 100 miles to a patient at Children’s in an effort to raise $100,000 for the hospital. Fragoso talks about his motivation to participate in the race and what the actual event entails.
Q: What made you want to run the Leadville Trail 100 Run in the first place?
For many years, I have been a competitive runner, with 11 Ironman triathlon races under my belt. Working in healthcare, I am passionate about living my life with health and fitness at the center, and continuously pushing myself and those close to me to set and accomplish new personal and professional goals. I embrace life with a spirit of always improving and never being finished. There is always progress to be made.
This August, I’m running the Leadville Trail 100. A 100-mile race over the highest mountains in the United States, the Colorado Rockies, with the starting point in the highest city in North America (Leadville at 10,200 elevation), and it must be completed in under 30 hours. This event is one of the toughest and oldest ultramarathons in the country designed to test the human body, both physically and mentally. This will be my third attempt to finish the race. This race is incredibly intense, stripping you raw. But it is also a transformative process, running through the night, through the pain, through the doubt, and eventually into a personal sense of clarity. You are not the same person when it’s over.
Q: Why is this a challenge you feel passionate about taking on?
100 miles. 100 kids.
I’m not running for time or medals. I’m running for the kids at Manning Family Children’s who face their own mountains every day, those fighting cancer, managing sickle cell disease, healing from trauma or struggling silently with mental health challenges. Every mile will carry the name of a child whose story has inspired me.
With this challenge, I will be honoring the strength, fight and courage that our patients at Manning Family Children’s demonstrate every single day, and I will be dedicating this run to them. All 100 miles. As I take the 200,000 steps through the mountains, I will be honoring their stories and their strength, while raising funds along the way. I’m doing it for the kids. And my ask of our community — join the movement! I don’t expect everyone to run 100 miles, but I am asking our community to run with us in spirit. Share our kids’ stories. Support our mission. Help us reach more families. At Manning Family Children’s, we run toward the toughest problems that impact our kids: violence, trauma, mental health. And we care for every child, every time — regardless of ability to pay. We can’t do it alone.
Q: What did you learn from previous runs?
Leadville is no easy feat — the air is thin, the climbs are steep, many hours are spent traversing in the dark, the pain is intense — and the race must be completed under 30 hours. It is incredibly trying, both physically and mentally. It certainly would be easier to give up, or to try something less intense, but I am a firm believer that you don’t gain or learn anything by quitting. Set big goals and go after them! The fact that I didn’t finish in two previous times just lets me know the goal is big enough. Personal growth happens when you don’t give up, when you keep pushing, when you push past the suffering and the doubt to find new boundaries. You finish what you start!
This is about pushing boundaries, discovering new possibilities, and overcoming and pushing through — qualities I see demonstrated in our patients every day. It is their strength and spirit that inspire and humble me. Our kids do not complain, they do not falter. They push on over their own mountains, fighting through it all — step by step, inch by inch, they keep going and they overcome. And that is why I am dedicating this run to them. To honor their fight, their courage, to share their stories of overcoming.
Q: How have you been training in New Orleans for a race that takes place through rough, sometimes mountainous terrain?
First, running is a team sport, and I would not be able to accomplish this feat without the team around me starting with my wife, Jill, and my team of pacers who will be joining me in Leadville. Training here in New Orleans, especially in the summer months, with the intense heat and humidity is great preparation for the intensity of Leadville. I have a regimented training schedule that includes running, strength training and sports medicine six days per week. It has been important to stick to the weekly schedule with guidance from my running and strength coaches, while fitting in several high-altitude training trips over the last few months to complete long training runs at elevation. Over fourth of July weekend, for example, I did a training weekend in Leadville where I trained on the hardest part of the course, Hope Pass. And my wife and I ran across the Grand Canyon, there and back, twice this year as part of our training.
Q: Can you tell us about a patient that has inspired you on this run and to keep going?
Brian Marelo is a 15-year-old patient of Manning Family Children’s who was born with spina bifida, with his spinal cord growing out of his back. Doctors said he would never walk, that that he would lie in a bed and have a poor quality of life. He has also experienced challenges including epilepsy and hydrocephalus requiring a shunt. Through it all, Brian’s family has been an amazing support system, and he had received the best care possible, with 20 surgeries and countless doctor’s appointments and therapy sessions to keep him strong and healthy.
Over recent years, Brian has developed a love for sports, and plays baseball, soccer and basketball. Last year Brian had the opportunity to participate in his first 5K fundraiser for his wheelchair basketball team, and he quite literally hasn’t stopped since. And he has now joined me for the last two Crescent City Classics. Brian, and the countless stories like his that we see here in our hospital every day is my WHY. He wasn’t supposed to be able to do all these things that he can currently do. And my favorite quote from Brian that we can all live by, “You’re only going to hurt yourself if you believe you can’t. But if you try, you might find out that you can.”
While I will be running each mile — all 100 — for a special and inspiring patient, Brian will be helping to bring it home – coming out to Leadville to run the last mile with me. Mile 100, Brian Marelo, will be running by my side to represent the strength, perseverance, hope, bravely and determination of countless of patients like him who overcome. There will be no greater reward than to see Brian, and to think of each of our kiddos who he will be there representing.
