KUSA - When a person is diagnosed with diabetes, they are faced with a very scary fact: diabetes causes more deaths each year than breast cancer and aids combined. So what does a person do with that fact? Never stop living... or running.
John Prenguber has been around the block a few times.
"I've probably ran 300-400 races in the last 20 some odd years."
OK, he has been around the block quite a few times.
"I've done nine marathons and now I've got to do one more to make ten, because nine is a terrible number to stop at," John says with a smile.
Hundreds of small races and nine marathons. All on two legs.
Marathon #10 will be entirely different.
"Kids in the neighborhood call me the kangaroo," say John, while he steadies himself on a nearby sign. On his legs he wears a pair of curved, flexible prosthetic legs.
Five years ago John developed an infection in his right heel due to complications from diabetes.
"They spent approximately nine months trying to save my leg," he says. "The doc came in and said it's your leg or your life. I said easy choice, just take the right leg. And they did."
For three years, John learned to live life with a prosthetic.
Until a problem surfaced with his left leg.
"When that got infected I just said cut it off, be done with it and get it over with," says John. Then with a smile he adds, "The doctor took me seriously and cut it off."
He can laugh, because that's just how John runs through life.
"I was fortunate enough to become Lockheed Martin's Disabled Employee of the year in 2009. I thought if I had known that I would have cut my legs off earlier," he jokes.
"We had a new guy come into work and they said 'This is John and occasionally you see his legs up on the desk.' He said that's not a big deal, and I said 'Tony, I don't think you understand.' I snapped them off and put them on the desk. He looked at me and (said) 'Oh, I see."
One could say John is a comedic double amputee runner who doesn't mind double takes when he trains.
"Only once have I created an accident here," he explains. "There were five guys on bikes. They went around and one guy looked too long and bumped into another guy. I felt terrible."
Passers by will often stop to ask questions.
"Some people think its war wounds. Some have to stop and talk about it, and I don't mind telling people as long as they're asking questions. I tell them basically it was diabetes, and it was diabetes that caused the infections."
He shares his challenges but also his goals. Like his tenth "26.2".
"I have no desire to sit in a corner and do nothing. I used to run, I'm going to run, and that's just the way it is."
"I don't want to stop."
John's goal for his 10th marathon is the Colfax Marathon on May 15th. That may or may not happen. In January he had a kidney removed, another result of complications with his diabetes.
John is confident he will return soon to not only running, but also his motivational talks with kids about running and diabetes.
For more information about the Colfax Marathon, visit www.coloradocolfaxmarathon.org
For more information about Diabetes, visit www.diabetes.org
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