Never one to miss a beat, Matt Fitzgerald climbed into the second row of his Mazda CX-90 on a recent weekday morning and opened his MacBook so he could work on another book.
Mr. Fitzgerald, 52, is many things – author, public speaker, coach – but most of all he is prolific. He has written or co-written 34 books, mostly on running, endurance sports and nutrition. He writes early. He writes often. He writes a lot.
“Sometimes I feel like I’m doing B-plus work on a dozen things versus A-plus on three or four,” he said. “But I am who I am. There are always a few things that I try to give my absolute best at any given time, and I guess that’s enough.”
Mr. Fitzgerald has the kind of slim, athletic build that hints at another part of his identity: the distance runner. He was prolific in this area as well, finishing 50 marathons – his fastest in 2 hours 39 minutes 30 seconds. And, once upon a time, he would jog down the quiet, snowy street in Flagstaff, Ariz., where he parked his sport utility vehicle.
Instead, Mr. Fitzgerald waited for John Gietzel, a 48-year-old business consultant from Winnipeg, Manitoba, to finish relaxing so he could close his laptop and train him in a series of hill sprints. As for himself, Mr. Fitzgerald has barely practiced in three years.
“I probably wouldn’t have done this if I hadn’t been sick,” Mr Fitzgerald said. “But I found it surprisingly rewarding.”
Mr Fitzgerald’s long struggle with Covid has, in significant ways, forced him to reshape who he is and what he does. In the process, he found representative joy by starting a business called Dream Run Camp out of his home in Flagstaff, where he lives with his wife, Nataki, and a rotating cast of recreational runners who pay between $45 and $115 a day to stay. . in one of the four guest bedrooms and be coached by him.
“I’m trying to create a happening,” said Mr. Fitzgerald, who shared his long-term vision: “Fast forward a few years, and everyone in the world has heard of Dream Run Camp, and there’s this mystique and it’s all good vibes.”
Organizes group tours every morning. He has “coach office hours” every afternoon, when he emerges from his writing nest to deliver PowerPoint presentations on topics such as “Disrupting Complacency” and “Tough Fun.” Mr Fitzgerald’s campers, whom he calls “dreamers”, can stay as long as they want, up to 12 weeks.
Mr. Gietzel, who has a job that allows him to work remotely, is staying for about a month so he can train for the Feb. 10 Mesa Marathon. Mr Fitzgerald plans to be at the finish.
“There’s some kind of magic here,” Mr Gitzel said. “I can feel it already.”
Mr. Fitzgerald had no way of knowing at the time, but now he believes the February 2020 US Olympic Marathon Trials changed his life. He had traveled to Atlanta to do some promotional appearances before the event and then compete in the Publix Atlanta Marathon the day after the trials. “That weekend was a lot of fun,” he said.
After returning home, Mr. Fitzgerald fell ill. Soon his wife also fell ill. Both believe they had contracted Covid, although this all happened before the availability of home tests and before widespread government shutdowns.
“We both stayed home and recovered because the hospitals were full,” Nataki Fitzgerald said.
Mr. Fitzgerald felt horrible for about a month — “It was by far the sickest I’ve ever been,” he said — before he slowly resumed his old lifestyle. In fact, he was running and exercising without problems until the summer of 2020.
“And then everything started to unfold in mysterious ways,” he said. “My neurological symptoms just became apparent. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t write. I couldn’t make a workout plan. I didn’t want to interact with people.”
Much remains unknown about the long Covid. While there is no test to determine whether symptoms such as fatigue, brain fog and persistent headaches are the result of the virus, prolonged Covid can persist for weeks, months or even years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention .
While Mr Fitzgerald said his neurological problems had improved in recent months, he still experiences chronic fatigue and “post-exertion malaise”, meaning anything involving physical exertion makes him feel awful.
“Just the disease you want if you’re an endurance athlete,” he said.
Early last year, he felt well enough to try to ease back into running. After six weeks of gradually increasing his workload, he was able to jog for 30 minutes.
“And then the bottom fell out again,” said Mr Fitzgerald, who has not jogged more than short distances since.
It was disorienting for someone whose whole life revolved around sports. He recalled one of his favorite experiences as a runner, when he spent 13 weeks training for the 2017 Chicago Marathon as a self-described “fake pro runner” with HOKA NAZ Elite, a team of world-class distance runners based in Flagstaff. Mr Fitzgerald capped off his time with the team by running a personal best for the marathon aged 46 and writing a book about it called ‘Running the Dream’.
As Mr. Fitzgerald struggled with the effects of lingering Covid, he reflected on that experience in Flagstaff. He knew he couldn’t run anymore—at least, not anytime soon—but he could envision a way to stay active, using his experience to guide others.
After convincing his wife they should uproot their lives in California and move to Flagstaff, a high-altitude mecca for runners, Mr. Fitzgerald welcomed his first campers — sorry, dream runners — last May. So far it has hosted about 30.
“I know he’s someone who delivers on his ideas,” said Ben Rosario, the executive director of HOKA NAZ Elite.
Running camps aren’t exactly a new concept. Steph Bruce, an elite distance runner, and her husband, Ben, run a week-long running camp in Flagstaff every summer. There are countless others across the country.
The difference with Dream Run Camp is that Mr. Fitzgerald’s dream runners stay at his house.
The walls are decorated with artwork of top runners. There is a shared recovery area with a hyperbaric chamber and a machine called a vibrating acoustic therapy bed. His garage is equipped with high quality exercise equipment. The backyard has a sauna and a small pool for exercise. Mr. Fitzgerald and his wife live in an attached guesthouse.
“It’s a difficult thing to promote,” he said. “Come to Dream Camp and you’re a little bored! It will be great for running!”
“But there is some truth to it. I see people who come here who are kind of tight from their normal lives and after they’ve been here for a few days, they’re wet.”
While Mr. Fitzgerald seems to have come to terms with some of his limitations, he cannot accept being a spectator forever.
Shortly after midnight on New Year’s Day, he got on his computer to register for the Javelina Jundred, a 100-kilometer ultramarathon in Fountain Hills, Ariz., in late October. Mr. Fitzgerald recognized how incongruous that sounded.
“I literally can’t take a step right now,” he said.
By way of illustration, Mr. Fitzgerald cited Charles Barkley’s final NBA season. After Mr. Barkley tore his quadriceps tendon in a game early in the season, he vowed to return.
Sure enough, about four months after his injury, Mr. Barkley returned to play in one final game, scoring a basket after a layup. He left court to applause.
In his own way, Mr. Fitzgerald said, he wants to do the same. He even has a working title for a book he wants to write: “Dying to Run: Ending Athlete’s Quest for One Last Finish Line.”
“I’m not doing this because I’m recovering,” she said. “I do this because I do not is recovering.”
Mr. Fitzgerald does not expect to compete, per se. He just wants to finish within the event’s 29-hour cutoff, even if that means walking the course.
“I can just survive,” he said.
