Priorities different, but focus the same as former Grafton High star prepares for Boston Marathon
The challenges have been many, and so have the successes for Grafton native Chaz Davis.
It has been more than 11 years since Davis was diagnosed with Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy, a rare mitochondrial disorder which rendered him legally blind as a student-athlete at the University of Hartford.
The two-time Boston Marathon para champion (T12) returns this year not merely as an athlete and an accomplished professional, but as a proud father excited about raising a family.
"My priorities have shifted, it's family first," said 30-year-old Davis, who arrived Friday from the Denver area to run in his fourth live Boston Marathon. "I'm very family-centric."
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Davis, now the director of youth services at the Colorado Center for the Blind, and fiancée Jodi Witthaus are parents of 2-year-old son Arlo. Not a day goes by when Chaz isn't amazed by the joy and development of their child.
"He loves to run," Davis notes. "We have a manual treadmill, and he's running on it all the time. Sure, he's fully into the terrible twos, but he's a good baby."
For the first time, Jodi, who also is blind, and Arlo will be on hand in Boston for Chaz's finish, which the former Grafton High great hopes matches up to his reasonable expectations.
And while Chaz Davis remains as competitive as he was when garnering multiple Telegram & Gazette Super Team honors while winning races for what were the Indians, he no longer feels pressure to collect individual accomplishments.
"There's been the blind national marathon championships, the Paralympics, winning the para division in Boston," Davis said. "But the motivation isn't as there as much to do those things. I'm in this to enjoy it."
Along with the challenges of navigating because of lack of sight, Davis also deals at times with multiple sclerosis-like symptoms, which were discovered in 2018.
"I was a bit more private about it," he said. "There are times I just can't do it — there are things I can't do with the same intensity that I once could do."
Davis often weathers added fatigue and some nerve pain, while he has lost some feeling in his left hand. He says the MS symptoms are non-progressive. "When I over-exert, it can cause flare-up or symptoms," he added. "So I take more care in measuring my effort."
Davis committed to 2024 Boston in January, "maybe a little late in the game," but he has been basically injury-free during his higher-altitude training in Colorado. He had entered Boston in 2023, but "circumstances kept me our last year."
At that time, Davis was still rebounding from his last competitive race in December 2022, when he was trying for his sixth straight blind national championship at the California International Marathon in Sacramento.
He was suffering from strep throat and battled and battled until he just couldn't go on. For only the second time in his life, Davis didn't finish the race.
Since midway through high school, he had resisted all agony to drop out of a race, even finished his first Boston in 2018, when his body temperature had plummeted to 89 degrees. The only other time he dropped out was in a cross-country event at Tantasqua Regional as a sophomore, when his coach literally pulled him out of the race. He was suffering from swine flu.
"The body just couldn't do it," Davis said of dropping out in Sacramento, but like when he left the race in high school, "it left a bad taste in my mouth."
Davis is pleased with his preparation this time for Boston.
"My training been good in the sense of consistency," he said "The volume has been up, to about 50-60 miles per week, and I've responded well to the altitude. It's not as high here as say a Flagstaff, but we're at about 5,600 feet, so I still get a benefit. When you get to sea level, you feel that benefit — psychologically, too."
Again joining him as guides are Connor Rockett for first half and Jeff Seelaus from there. Rockett, now in graduate school at Yale, is coming off competing at the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in February. Seelaus ran in the 2020 Trials.
Entered this year is 42-year-old Moroccan El Amin Chentouf, like Davis a Paralympian in 2016 in Rio, who last year ran a 2:31:35 to win the division in Boston. Davis has a personal marathon best of 2:31 (2016 California International), but he regulates his expectations.
"I want to compete, and do the best I can," he said. "Top two, I'd be happy. I'm more concerned about placing than about time, but if I ran about 2:40, I'd be really happy."
The T11/12 winner earns $2,500, with $1,500 to second place and $1,000 to third.
While his training may now take a back seat to family and health, Davis still thrives on his competitive nature.
"I want to be at the top," he said. "My desire to compete still supercedes all that. And thirty is still a prime time for marathoning."
Davis now more carefully picks and chooses when and where he competes, when and where he wants. Yet he still can think down the road.
"Four years from now, the Paralympics are back in the United States (Los Angeles). I'm sure not counting that out."
But Chaz's pursuit isn't obsessive.
"I'm doing it for fun. If it wasn't fun, I wouldn't be doing it."
—Contact John Conceison at john.conceison@telegram.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @ConceisonJohn.
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Grafton native Chaz Davis ready to try for third Boston Marathon para championship
