If you watched season two of Bravo’s Workout, you may remember Doug Blasdell training his ex Cheo. Cheo had kidney failure and was waiting for a transplant. Well, he never got it. Cheo died this past weekend.
I met Cheo through my roommate Ivan back in 1989 or so. A whole group of them came from Venezuela to attend graduate school at Northrup University. Not Cheo. He tagged along on a tourist visa. Funny thing is he was the first to get permanent residence.
In 1991 he was preparing to run in the LA Marathon, and wanted me to run with him. It was quickly apparent that I could never run the full 26 miles, so I said I’d run part of it. He said he didn’t need me help him run the first half, not to mention that I wouldn’t be able to keep up, so I ran the last half with him. Probably more like the last 10 miles. We both registered, got our bibs. I took him down to to the Coliseum, saw him off, then jumped into the car and drove to Crenshaw and Olympic, where I waited for him. A couple hours later we meet and I keep him company the rest of the way, well most of the way. Even after his 16 miles, it was hard keeping up with him. In fact as the Coliseum came into view, the entire field quickly picked up the pace and left me in the dust. Cheo’s time was about 4.5 hours.
Here are a few pics that I took. The first is from the day of the marathon. The second is from gay pride that same summer.
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