Name: Mike Foley
Career: reporter for The Greenville News
High School/College: Farmington Hills Harrison High School (it's in Michigan)/Michigan State University (undergraduate)
Hobbies: coaching high school cross country, and sometimes track, takes up most of my spare time. I like to hike and kayak when possible. I read everything I can get my hands on.
scrunners: When did you start to compete in the Transplant Games and explain?
foley: The U.S. Transplant Games are held every other year. I competed in 2002 for the first time at Disney World in Florida. I had a kidney transplant in 1999 and a pancreas transplant in 2000. But you must have your transplant for six months before you can compete so I wasn't eligible or healed well enough to compete in 2000. There's also an International Transplant Games on the years between the U.S. Games. In 2003 it was in Japan, but it was pretty expensive to get there, so I passed. The 2005 International Transplant Games are in Canada, so if I qualify this summer, I hope to go to those.
scrunners: What kind of goals are you setting for this year's games?
foley: In 2002, I won bronze in the 1500 on the track and bronze in the 5K road race. I also was on the silver medal winning 4x400 relay (with other member of Team South Carolina) and I was second in the 800. I'd really like to try and win gold in at least one of those events this year.
scrunners: What events will you run in at the games?
foley: 1,500 and 800 on Friday, and then the 5K road race the next morning. The schedule isn't too conducive to multiple events this year, but you have to deal with what they give us. And the other runners have the same issues.
scrunners: Explain to the scrunners viewers the whole ceremony and meet process?
foley: The opening ceremonies are huge and very emotional. Each state has its own team, although some of the bigger states will have two or more teams. In 2002, the opening ceremonies were held in the baseball stadium at Wide World of Sports and there were something like 8,000+ people there. The teams march into the stadium just like an Olympic Games. They have speeches, release doves, lots of pomp and circumstance, fireworks, etc. It's really pretty cool to see all these survivors out there. You look at all these people filing into the stadium with life-saving transplants and you really get a feel for the gift we've all been given. You can appreciate the advances medical science has made. And you also realize what a difference ordinary people have made across the country by donating their organs to others. This year, the Games are at the University of Minnesota and the opening ceremonies are in the football stadium. There's supposed to be 10,000 some people, and about 1,500 athletes from little kids to senior citizens. The transplant athletes include U.S. Olympic medalists, professional athletes, college athletes, plenty of old has-beens like me, and then other people who probably never even considered themselves athletes before who compete just to help show people that transplants save lives. There's so many sports offered, it's like an Olympics. Everything from country club sports like golf, bowling, badminton, to team sports like volleyball, basketball, and then individual sports, like track and field, swimming, biking, etc. I think the 5K race was the biggest single event last year with more than 500 people in it.
scrunners: How many athletes do you meet and what is the whole atmosphere like?
foley:Every where you go, from the actual competitions, to restaurants, to your hotels, to the Disney theme parks, you meet people. And because we all have this bond, it's like we're all friends. You certainly have a topic of conversation to break the ice. What kind of transplant did you have? What kinds of drugs are you on? But you get past that stuff pretty quickly. We know we've all been through hell so we understand each other. My wife and I met a guy who I raced three times, from Massachusetts and we became pretty good friends. We still e-mail and call each other. We got along great with him, his wife and his daughters. When the gun goes off we raced each other like hell, but as soon as the races were finished, it sort of hits you: I'm lucky just to be alive and be able to run at all. It's a different atmosphere from other races I've done because we've all got this strong bond. The entire Games is really cool. They make a huge deal out of it. They treat you great. The National Kidney Foundation and others really support us. There's certainly competition there, but participation -- actually the ability to participate -- is the key. We really want to show the world that transplants work. That people can save lives with a simple gift and that these lives are vital and important.
scrunners: How many days will you stay at the games?
foley: The opening ceremonies are Wednesday, July 28 and closing ceremonies are Saturday night, July 31. It's a little more compact this year.
scrunners: When did you start to run?
foley: I started my freshman year of high school when I lived in Ohio. I'd played football in middle school, but every basketball season I'd start out with broken fingers, or injured knees or something. So, a friend of mine was going to run cross country to get in shape for wrestling. I figured if I was getting busted up in middle school, what was going to happen to me if I played high school football? So I ran to get in shape for basketball. We had a great coach and the school was pretty dominant in the state. Two years earlier they'd scored 15 points at state. We ran two miles back then in Ohio and our top guy ran 8:59, on grass with huge hills. He was a beast. I was in awe just to be able to practice with the guy. I really liked croiss country, even though I wasn't too good. I did manage to place fifth and win a plaque in a freshman-only race. My two-mile p.r. that year was 12:46. Which in retrospect was pretty sad. We would run one 3-mile cross country race each year, sort of to advocate to the state that it increase the race distance statewide, and I couldn't even break 20. But it got me started.
scrunners: Did you run in high school and college?
foley: We moved to Michigan after my freshman year. So I continued to run cross country and track and play basketball at my new high school and then I walked on at Michigan State.
scrunners: If so, where and when?
foley: My high school was: Farmington Hills Harrison High. It's a suburb of Detroit. We were a Class A school, which is the biggest of the four classes in Michigan. They have classes: A,B,C and D. I graduated in 1978. Then I went to Michigan State (1978-83) on the "five-year plan." I didn't run my freshman year because when I went to talk to the coach, he pretty much told me my high school times sucked (16:13 for XC; 4:41/9:52 track) and I couldn't hang with all his studs. Being a dumb freshman, I believed him. The next year, one of my best friends from home came to MSU, too. And he went to talk to the coach. When he walked on, I went too, because we trained together all the time and we were pretty compatible. He'd run 15:45 the year after I did and 9:39 on the track.
scrunners: With you competing at the Master's meet in the early summer how did that help you prepare for the meet?
foley: I've been doing track workouts with some of my high school kids, my wife, and some of her girls from Converse College all spring, so it was a chance to test where I was. I didn't exactly flunk, but I have a ways to go. It sort of gave me a chance to re-evaluate my training and make some adjustments. I've been doing plenty of mileage, but I needed to work on speed, because I don't have any. I'd still like to hop in one of the Greenville Track Club's all-comers meets for one more test, plus a couple of road races before the Games. But my schedule is pretty hectic with cross country practice every night and on weekends.
scrunners: What kind of goals is Blue Ridge setting for the upcoming season, as they move up to 3A from being 2A state champions?
foley: I'm just coaching the guys now, after coaching both girls and boys teams last year, so I can only talk about them. And they really appreciate it when I keep my big mouth shut. But, we've were in Class AAA before, in 2000-01, so we're used to the competition. And we raced all the top schools in big meets last year and only Wade Hampton and Wren in AAA beat us consistently. Wren moved to AAAA, Wade Hampton lost a lot of seniors, and Broome, the other contender, moved down to AA. Chapin, which was strong in AA with us, moved up too so I don't think people should forget about them. A lot of people think Class AA-A is like JV competition. So we know we won't just naturally get respect. I will say, if people take us for granted, they'll be very unpleasantly surprised because the guys on the team take it personally. We do know Coach Rick Zeller at Wade Hampton isn't going to roll over and give up, so we eagerly look forward to racing the five-time state champs. We have ambitious goals for 2004 and we are training extremely hard right now to meet them.
scrunners: Who is your biggest competitor at the meet?
foley: Doug McSpadden from Arizona and Len Feminino from Massachusetts. They were both in my 40-49 age group in 2002 and I expect they'll be back this year. We went 1-2-3 overall and in our age group in the 1500 and 5K in 2002. Len and I went 1-2 in the 800. Doug had a kidney transplant, and Len had a liver transplant. Neither went on dialysis and neither had multiple transplants like I did, so I don't think they ever got as sick as I did, and they weren't as sick for so long. Len moves up to the 50-59 age group this year, which helps me. But I always shoot for overall wins, so age groups don't mean much. Doug ran at Northern Arizona University and he was a stud back in the day. Len was a former college football player who has since slimmed down. He's run Boston Marathon a few times and he's a great runner. They are both tough as hell and it's fun to race them. Afterward, we had a lot of laughs and really enjoyed warming up and cooling down with each other. I really felt honored when we got up on the medal stand together and we all held hands up in the air. I'm not sure if other athletes -- maybe those in the Paralympics -- ever have that same sort of comaraderie.
scrunners: How many spectators are at the meet?
foley: In 2002, it was ungodly hot for the track meet, like in the low 90s with a humidity to match. I wouldn't have gone to watch if I could have been inside in the air conditioning watching something else. It was no surprise since it was July and in Florida. The meet wasn't that well organized so it dragged on forever. There was probably 400-500 people early in the day, but by late afternoon, it dropped to maybe 100. A lot of Team South Carolina was there and we all yelled for each other. There was a lot of enthusiasm among our team when someone won a medal so we went to see each other play a lot of the other sports for support.
scrunners: How many more years do you plan on competing in this meet/games?
foley: I don't know. If I do well enough this summer, I do want to run the International Transplant Games at least once. It's fun representing Team South Carolina in the U.S. Games and I think it would be even better being on the U.S. Team for the International Games. And with them being in Canada in 2005, that's doable. I'll probably just take it year by year. I am assuming that I'll remain healthy, but if not, then that's a consideration that never goes away.
scrunners: With a transplant kidney how much harder is it for you to train and race than what society considers a "normal" individual?
foley: It's hard for me to pick apart now what issues I have from old age and those from drug side effects and from being ill for so long. Like most runners, I used to train hard/easy, but I don't recover as well now so it's more like, hard/easy/easy for me. My cardiovascular system was pretty screwed up when I had kidney failure. I still had the ability to take large amounts of oxygen into my lungs, but my body couldn't use it because my red blood cells were shot. I had amazingly severe anemia. You hear about pro cyclists and distance runners cheating by using EPO, well I used it, but it was mainly to stay alive and it was a prescription. But it didn't help much. It just allowed me to breathe normally. You have that for four to five years and it takes a toll on you. I went from being a 15 minute 5K runner in my prime to not being able to break 30 minutes for 5K. It was like trying to run with a plastic bag over your head. I've rebounded a lot, but some of those same problems exist. I take a lot of anti-rejection drugs so when I have an injury it is extremely slow to heal because I have no immune system and my whole body chemistry is messed up. I've been battling various leg injuries all year and they take forever to heal. My peers from college can still run 5Ks in the high 16s and lows 17s, but I'm more than four minutes off that. So, in that respect, I'm not doing too well. But if I run a fairly large 5K or 8K, I finish in the upper half of my age group and definitely in the upper half of the field, so I'm more competitive than a lot of people out there. I don't think a lot of people understand all the abuse my body took when I was sick. When I'm at the Transplant Games, we all get it because we've been through it, but at a regular road race people just think I stink. I try not to use that as an excuse. My wife, Robin, and I have talked about that. I sort of made a vow never to say, "It's OK if I don't run well, it's because I was sick." Instead, I just try to compete the best I can, to train the best I can. I really don't like it when people tell me I should just be happy that I can run. I still have in the back of my head that I should at least be able to go sub-20 for 5K one of these days. The hardest thing for me is adjusting to the fact that I'm so pathetically slow these days. It's really atrocious on the track when I'm doing speed workouts and I can't even comprehend the numbers on my watch because my mind wants me to believe I'm still decent. I guess all older athletes remember how they "were" and not how they "are." Well, I've got that aging issue and the "I was pretty close to being dead" problem, too. If I look at it rationally, and that's not easy, I think, "Hey, I'm lucky to be running at all." Or, "I'm just lucky to be alive." When I have those moments of crystal clear thought, then running fast just becomes so unimportant in the grand scheme of things. But I was a pretty good athlete for a long time, I won a lot of races back then and ran some pretty fast times, and my mind still lies to me all the time. I can't change that.
South Carolina Transplant Athletes Competing in the track and field portion of the games:
5,000m - 40-49 -- Pam Hawver (Mt. Pleasant) - liver
Mike Foley (Greenville) - kidney
60 and over -- Willie Mae Burke (Columbia) - heart
1500m - 18-29 -- Kristen McCall (Greenville) - kidney
40-49 -- Mike Foley (Greenville) - kidney
800m - 18-29 -- Kristen McCall (Greenville) - kidney
40-49 -- Mike Foley (Greenville) - kidney
Michael Ulmer (Easley) - kidney
Mark Walker (Columbia) - kidney
100m - 40-49 -- Michael Ulmer (Easley) - kidney
Mark Walker (Columbia) - kidney
4x100 relay - 40-49 -- Michael Ulmer, Mark Walker, Trent Satterwhite (Lancaster) -- bone marrow, Kristen McCall