Richard Apodaca, 61, is in remarkable shape according to most standards. The San Francisco resident has run 12 marathons, has workout partners half his age, and was recently training for the Ironman Triathalon.
Lucky number 13 is the Lakeshore Marathon on May 31.
All of which is even more impressive considering that Apodaca has had AIDS for the past 20 years. He came into the hospital after a summer out at Fire Island with a tremendously high fever.
Doctors didn't know what to call it—Lyme Disease, they surmised. Five months later, Apodaca received the diagnosis that he had AIDS—a disease that no one really knew anything about and was likely to kill him.
'I was one of the very, very first wave of people to have AIDS,' he said. 'You read And the Band Played On, and those are all of my friends, the crowd I used to run with, and they're all dead.'
But instead of being on the AIDS quilt like many of his friends, Apodaca found himself surviving—if barely. Six years ago, he was virtually near death, as he puts it. 'I had everything you could have—wasting disease, thrush, everything.'
He couldn't even walk—falling pray to the nerve damage that often plagues victims of AIDS and diabetes. The pain was so intense that he couldn't even put on a pair of socks.
Each day involved a regimen of about 60 pills and with all of the medication he was on, he was only able to function about four hours a day. Apodaca had nine T-cells left in his body.
'I've always had an active personality and I was ready to call it quits almost,' he said.
Frustrated with the regimen of traditional medicine, he decided to start looking outside the box for anything that could make the pain less intense. With the help of Dr. Wendy Robbins in San Francisco, Apodaca decided to try a remedy using chili pepper oil to restore some of the sensitivity to his feet.
The intense heat and numbing qualities of the chili pepper oil somehow managed to restore some of Apodaca's nerves. After the first week, he could get up and put weight on his legs.
While walking, Apodaca was still wrought with the virus. His notified his doctors that he was going to go off all his medicine save one—an experimental drug called Fuzeon.
For six months, Apodaca would inject this into the only remaining bit of soft tissue on his body, the area surrounding his navel. After a while, the injections grew incredibly painful because he had to stick himself in the same place so many times.
He was about to give up on this drug after five months until he went in for testing that showed for the first time in years, he was producing new t-cells. Six months later, his t-cells were in the triple digits. Now, the virus is undetectable in his system.
But Apodaca's body had been decimated. It was time to start working out again, building back muscle and gaining fat so that if the disease did hit him again, his body would be restored enough to put up a fight.
Five years ago, the San Francisco AIDS Marathon caught his eye. He started to do training and completed his first marathon. 'It became like a drug, and I just love doing them,' he said.
Running marathons is more than just about Apodaca's own well being. Instead, he is a one-man inspiration who encourages anyone with HIV/AIDS not to take their illness waiting for death but to lead an active life.
'I want to show people that just because you are positive doesn't mean your life is over, that there is so much you can do.'
The former cobbler for the entertainment industry now spends most of his non-workout time on AIDS advocacy. He is involved with AIDS for AIDS out of New York City, a non-profit that encourages the donation of medication that can then be shipped to countries where treatment is often unavailable.
Apodaca is wary, though, of many young people who might not take the virus seriously in an age of drug cocktails where life with HIV is not the death sentence it once was.
'When I got this, I didn't go and expose my body to other forms of the virus by having unsafe sex,' he said. 'I took my drugs, exercised, and had safe sex, which are probably the reasons I'm still here.'
The 26-1/2 miles also gives Apodaca ample time to reflect. He often runs in memory of one of the friends he has lost. 'And when I'm out there, I'm often thinking about them, about what I would tell them about the race I'm running and the city I'm in.'
Apodaca doesn't care about when he finishes—he's run in six hours and in three hours. Along the way, he'll share his story with others, giving inspiration and drawing it from the people around him.
'Each marathon is an opportunity for me to commune with my past and share my present,' he said.
Force Takes on Sharks in Playoffs
The Chicago Force will travel to New York this weekend to battle it out with the Sharks one more time. The Force will be bringing out all the big guns in this divisional clash with the highly competitive New York Sharks. Listen to the game at www.kedu.us on Saturday, May 22. The pre-game show begins with Joe Spano and Bob Black at 1:45 (CDT) and the game will be called by Greg Mescall and Pat Brown around 2 p.m. (CDT).
Chicago Force fine-tuned their game against the Detroit Predators last weekend. The Force shut down the Predators in Detroit, 65-0. See www.chicagoforcefootball.com .
