NYC’s hottest trainer is running the marathon on his hands and feet
Whether or not the coronavirus grinds the New York City Marathon to a halt this year, Devon Levesque will be crawling across the finish line.
The 27-year-old fitness fanatic has set the ambitious goal of covering the 26.2 miles on Nov. 1 — all on his hands and feet.
Training for the marathon in the uncomfortable position known as bear crawling — moving on hands and feet in a slow motion with one’s back parallel to the ground — has wreaked havoc on his body. His quads burn during his daily training and his hands are so calloused, they’ve turned into “paws,” he says. But he’s hoping the journey will be just as challenging mentally as it is physically.
“I wanted to understand my mind and body,” Levesque tells The Post. “You’re in disbelief you can do it, but you find out things about yourself when you discover you can do it.”
Levesque is putting himself through the agonizing process to raise money for FitOps, an organization that helps veterans cope with mental health through fitness. The topic of mental health hits close to home for him. When he was 16, the Jersey City native’s dad killed himself after a struggle made worse by a divorce and the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis.
“What I went through … with my father committing suicide is a big driving force for what I do,” he says. “I’ve never been open minded enough to share that with the world, but me letting that go has drastically changed the way I think of mental health and the way people should express themselves.”
The partner at Union Square’s uber-exclusive fitness studio Performix House got the idea to do the bear crawl on a pre-coronavirus trip to the UK a few months ago. There, he met Ross Edgley, a British extreme athlete, who encouraged him to push his personal limits.
“He said, ‘I think you need to do something that makes people think differently about the human body — something that’s not Instagrammable — something that will stick with you your whole life.’ ”
Levesque’s mind went to his late dad — and his love of bear crawling. “I decided my resolution for 2020 [would be] to bear crawl 26.2 miles to raise awareness for mental health.”
His training consists of 10 miles a week on all fours. His workouts happen both indoors with weights, and outdoors on a track near his home in Jersey City. This helps him avoid the crowds and stay socially distanced throughout his training, he says.
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“People tell me it’s borderline psychotic,” says Levesque, who estimates it will take 24 hours to finish the full 26.2 miles.
But he’s got his eyes — and his hands and feet — on the prize: His goal is to raise $500,000 for FitOps, and he’s kicking in $15,000 of his own money.
And he’s prepared for the possibility that he won’t be racing next to his upright counterparts come Nov. 1. Already, the Brooklyn half marathon has been cancelled due to the coronavirus, and the Boston Marathon was moved to September. If the New York City Marathon is cancelled or moved, he plans to pull off his goal regardless, he says.
“I want to show people you can do things you think are impossible.”