THESE WARRIORS ARE ALL HEART
LOWELL SUN
DRACUT — When one heart warrior crosses the finish line of the Boston Marathon, he’ll be looking for another heart warrior cheering him on.
That’s the term that race director Dave McGillivray and Jack Middlemiss have affectionately been calling one another leading up to this year’s race.
Just six months after triple-bypass surgery, McGillivray will run his 47th consecutive Boston Marathon on Monday. This time, he’s doing it for Dracut’s Joseph Middlemiss Big Heart Foundation, named after Jack’s older brother who died from complications of cardiomyopathy in 2013 at age 6.
Jack, who was born with the same congenital heart condition just a month before his brother’s death, is now a rambunctious 5-year-old — a year and two months post-heart transplant.
“When Jack had his heart transplant, obviously we were very concerned for him,” McGillivray said. “He and I became really close friends — running buddies, if you will. All that happened to me sort of made the connection even that much stronger.”
McGillivray's connection to the Middlemiss family goes back several years, to when his son, Luke, now 13, had Jack’s mother, Kate Middlemiss, as a kindergarten teacher in North Andover.
Over the years, the families became friends, and it was McGillivray who gave the foundation its first marathon bib in 2015. McGillivray also ran in and came to direct the foundation’s Joseph Middlemiss Superhero/Rock ‘n’ Roll 5K, held every September.
When Luke was recently hospitalized for an esophageal issue, Jack made him a video with tips to help him get through his hospital stay.
“It just meant a lot that this young boy who had heart transplant surgery, he’s thinking of my son in the hospital and using his own experience there to help someone else,” McGillivray said.
Jack has enjoyed receiving many of McGillivray’s marathon medals, including the seven he earned last year in the World Marathon Challenge, in which McGillivray ran seven marathons on seven continents in seven days.
The two enjoy a fun and competitive camaraderie — especially now that Jack can run on his own.
“It’s funny, it’s like a kid and his crazy uncle,” said Jack’s father, Scott Middlemiss. “They go back and forth, telling each other, ‘I’m going to beat you,’ ‘No, I’m going to beat you,’ in races.”
Six years ago, McGillivray was diagnosed with coronary artery disease. Through a series of lifestyle changes, he was able to reverse it by more than 30 percent, he said.
Then, last February or March, McGillivray said he could feel some discomfort in his chest again. An angiogram revealed a blockage in a major artery, and he was told he needed bypass surgery.
“It was sort of devastating,” he said. “I thought I had beat it.”
But McGillivray came through the surgery like a champ and has been cleared by his doctors to run the 26.2-mile course, which he’ll do later in the evening, long after the core of competitive runners has finished.
“The honor that he would do that for us — not only to bring awareness to the foundation but to heart disease, and the combined mission, we’re speechless,” Kate Middlemiss said. “Scott and I often tell him, we don’t know how to thank him anymore.”
McGillivray has already surpassed the $100,000 fundraising goal he set for this year, topping about $103,000 as of Friday evening.
Between the 12 runners on Team Big Heart, nearly $200,000 was raised as of Friday, shaping up to be the foundation’s biggest fundraiser yet.
It’s an exciting prospect for the Middlemisses, who are looking forward to using the funds to expand the foundation’s mission to help other families affected by childhood heart conditions and spread kindness.
It means they can do larger-scale kind acts, like they recently did with providing the last $7,000 a local family needed for an accessible wheelchair van, Scott Middlemiss said.
It also means contributing more to medical research — which has so far, thanks to Jack and Joseph, identified a gene related to cardiomyopathy, Kate Middlemiss announced at the Team Big Heart dinner at Scola’s Thursday night.
Among the runners assembled there was Kevin LaCoste, principal of Westford’s Robinson School, where Scott Middlemiss is assistant principal. This is the second year LaCoste is running for Team Big Heart.
“Thinking about doing acts of kindness for people I think is a tremendous thing that you want all kids to be a part of, in my own family and the students that I work with,” he said.
Running for the first time this year are foundation board member Andrea Walsh and Meg Park, a cardiac nurse who has cared for both Jack and Joseph at Boston Children’s Hospital.
Walsh, of Groton, has been with the foundation since the beginning. After a major life upheaval in 2018, Walsh said she decided 2019 would be the year she finally put on her running shoes and got in the race. She said it’s been an amazing journey of fighting back from her lowest point and finding her resilience, strength, determination and dedication to the cause.
“When you have something as amazing as the foundation that they’ve built and that’s what you’re running for, and all the other families whose kids have same condition as Jack and Joe, it’s kind of easy to push yourself,” Walsh said.
Park, of Wrentham, said she’s inspired by how the Middlemisses turned a personal tragedy into a mission to help others. When she hits the difficult parts of the course, she said she’ll be thinking about her resilient young patients.
“The cardiac kids and their families, nobody knows what they go through,” Park said. “As hard as any moment of my run might be, they’ve been through way harder, and if they can muscle through it, I can muscle through it.”
Donate to the team at https://www.crowdrise.com/o/en/campaign/joseph-middlemiss-big-heart-foundation-boston-2019/.