AUSTIN, Texas — Alex Glarakis is a former patient at the Heart Hospital of Austin at St. David’s Round Rock. He went through double bypass surgery in 2017. But fast forward to 2020 and he’s just completed running a marathon on every continent in the world.
"I appreciate everything – every moment, every person, everything – and if there are obstacles in life, I look at them in a completely different way," said Glarakis.
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In 2017, he went to a couple parties, and one day he fainted when he was dancing. He went to the doctor and they told him he was fine, but he wanted to make sure there were no heart problems.
"After a lot of tests, we found out there was a complete blockage in the front artery of the heart, and the doctor said the only solution you have is to operate," said Glarakis. "Thousands of millions of different feelings – bad and good feelings – came up to, what's going to happen?"
"This disease affecting the blood vessels of the heart is the most common disease in the country. It actually is the No. 1 cause of death in the country," said Dr. W. Chance Conner, medical director of cardiothoracic surgery at the Heart Hospital of Austin at St. David's Round Rock and CTVS surgeon.
Austin marathon runner completes marathons in every continent after open heart surgery
Dr. Conner performed the surgery and everything went as planned. Glarakis said after the surgery he went to New Zealand in November 2017 and continued his marathon journey.
Now he's just finished his marathons-around-the-world goal, hitting up every continent, including Antarctica. Now, he's encouraging others to take care of their bodies.
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"If you have faith, which I do, that helps a lot, and, second of all, don’t give up. Don’t give up no matter what the doctor will say to you or whatever you feel. Just fight it. Fight it and you will be the winner," said Glarakis. "I think everybody has to treat their body, not as something that we have, something that’s so precious. It was given to us for some purpose and we owe to keep it up healthy."
Below is a list of every marathon Glarakis has run. His first marathon was the Austin Marathon six years ago, which is coming up again in mid-February.
- Austin (North America): Feb. 16, 2014
- Greece (Europe): Nov. 9, 2014
- New Zealand (Oceania): Nov. 18, 2017
- Kenya (Africa): Aug. 11, 2018
- Antarctica: Jan. 15, 2019
- Chile (South America): Jan. 19, 2019
- Great Hakka Marathon (Asia): Nov. 23, 2019
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