How "All the Crazy Running" Keeps Saving Luis Rodriguez

In 1982, New York City was a tough town. Things weren’t easy for Latinx residents of Upper Manhattan and the Bronx, but they weren’t throwing in the towel. To balance life in a relentlessly churning city, for Luis Rodriguez and his fellow Dominicans uptown, the only sport that mattered was baseball; it had been mapped onto their cultural DNA over generations. But a line drive to his chest would set Luis, who was 31, off in an entirely different direction.

For months, doctors in one of the city’s hospitals tended to his ailing heart, with a laser focus on pharmaceutical remedies. The wisdom expressed by one physician, though, stood out: “When you are sitting down, you are sleeping, and that's no good. You need to go out and do something.” Baseball was not enough, Luis was told—he needed to start running.

Luis gave it a shot, but it didn’t come naturally at first. “I went to George Washington High School track,” he recalls. “I did one quarter mile, and I was dying.” But he didn’t give up, and nearly four decades later—in addition to raising four children and often working two jobs to support them—he’s done countless races and at least 15 New York City Marathons. Along the way he’s faced some serious threats to his health, but that’s never stopped him from lacing up his running shoes and putting in the miles. 

Hooked on a New Sport

The $39 he spent for his first pair of running shoes soon paid off, as “Luis Rodriguez from the Bronx” was called to the awards stage after a race in New Jersey a few months later. “They gave me a medal,” he says. “I won third place in my age group. That got me crazy.”

It was only his second race. With a new medal hanging around his neck, Luis was hooked on running. He soon set his sights on the New York City Marathon.

It was 1985, and just getting into the marathon was a physical drill in those pre-digital days. “They used to do a line in the park, and you buy an envelope for 3 dollars and you put your name in the envelope and you have to post the envelope the night before the deadline. People used to go to the post office down by 34th Street,” Luis says.

He got a spot. “I ran. It was good. Because that saved my life!” He especially loved the second part of the race and can still tap into the emotions he felt coming off the Queensboro Bridge: “I cried, like I’m doing now.”

Finding Community

Luis’s new hobby had become a way of life, and what had begun as a solitary mission to improve his health soon became a source of friendship and community. While working as a building superintendent (and often holding down a second job, as well), Luis would regularly put in 80 miles per week, which meant he often had to run late at night. His favorite routes were in Riverdale and Van Cortlandt Park. “But the whole city for me was good,” he says. “I used to come from 42nd Street all the way home at the end of the workday, 12 o’clock at night.” Other times he’d run to Central Park from his home around 165th Street in the Bronx.

The more Luis ran, the more he encountered the larger Hispanic running community of New York City. “I used to know a large group of Hispanic people. [There was the] Hispanic Half Marathon in Central Park. We all met there. Maybe 40 guys from different countries. We used to meet at races. I still meet some of the guys sometimes in Van Cortlandt,” he says.

Luis would have run the marathon every year through the 1980s and 90s if not for a collision with a car on his bicycle. Coming home after the accident, his only comment to his son Manny was that he would not be able to run the marathon. In 1996 his participation hung in the balance again as he recovered from open heart surgery, the first of two. Only two months later he was up and running again, and he competed the Queens Half Marathon in a little over two hours. That year he ran New York and the following April he ran his personal best, 2 hours and 42 minutes, in Boston.

Luis’s momentum has carried him all the way to the present, including five years of three-times-a-week dialysis. “I used to come out, sleep a little bit, and walk to the gym to work out,” he says. In June he received a kidney transplant. Recently a doctor told him, “Luis, you're still alive because of all of that exercise, all the crazy running.”

"The Best Marathon in the World"

Luis has run the New York City Marathon more than 15 times, most recently in 2007, and the race has never lost its magic. “It’s so beautiful because you meet the people from New York!” he says. “From the beginning to the end, you can see different types of people. The best marathon in the world is New York.” And now the marathon has become a family tradition — both his sons ran in 2016. “When I went to see them, I cried,” he says.

“I would love to go back and do the marathon one more time,” Luis says. “No matter how slow, how fast, I just want to do the course again.”

Year-round, NYRR recognizes the contributions of the Latinx community. For Latinx Heritage Month (September 15-October 15), we are highlighting stories and achievements from Latinx perspectives.