Talking with Mike Sheehy, a senior IT director at Abbott in Lake County, he comes off as a friendly family man.
The fourth of five kids, the U.S. Army veteran enjoys going on runs with his wife, and says his three boys think — lovingly — that their parents are “strange.”
But his presentation sitting down during an interview belies just how extreme Sheehy really is. His run last month with his wife was a marathon in Antarctica, and the ultra-endurance athlete — with more than a hundred marathons to his credit — has spent the last nine years running with a pacemaker.
Sheehy, of Deerfield, is a man who loves to run.
“If you were to interview my mom, I’m the fourth of five kids, so I have three older brothers and ever since I was born, I’ve been constantly on the run,” he said. “Either running from them, or running after them.”
He ran through his time at college and in the military, and ran several times for charity after he started working for Abbott. Included on his resume of marathons are 20 to 30 “ultra marathons,” any race longer than the traditional 26-mile race, with some as long as 100 miles.
It was in 2017, while preparing for a race in Tokyo, that his health issues began.
“When I would run, at some point in time my breathing would become so labored, and I’d get a pain in my chest,” he recalled.
Sheehy wouldn’t get an answer until he ended up at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, where he learned that while his heart rate would climb as normal at the start of his runs, it would suddenly plummet.
“My electrical system was just failing,” he said.
The doctors gave him the rundown. The question wasn’t if he was getting a pacemaker, it was when. If he stopped running, it likely wouldn’t be necessary for some time, they told him.
But doctors allayed any worries he may have had about living with a pacemaker.
“The cardiology team said, ‘This device isn’t about limiting you; it’s about giving you back your quality of life,’” Sheehy said.
Within months, he had the device installed, and in 2018, less than six months later, he was at the start line of the Boston Marathon.
Pacemakers like Sheehy’s are small devices, roughly the size of a silver dollar, placed under the skin. Leads, essentially wires, run from the device into the heart, sending one-volt pulses of electricity to regulate the heart’s beating.
Although Sheehy said he can feel when it kicks in — describing it as a “little surge of energy” — he likened it more to a sensation of just finding his rhythm running. The biggest difference is in his running pace.
“I went from struggling to run two miles without having that pain, I just couldn’t breathe, to ‘wow,’ like I was just motoring. I could just run like the old days,” he said.
Sheehy encouraged anyone worried about pacemakers to consider using the devices. His personal quality of life improvement has been enormous, he said.
Pacemakers are an old technology dating back more than 60 years, according to Vish Charan, deputy vice president of product development at Abbott. They’ve shrunk massively since the early days, when they were closer in size to hockey pucks.
More modern pacemakers, such as ones developed by Abbott, are now “leadless,” according to Charan. A tiny device can be implanted within the heart to regulate heart rate, lasting many years and removing the drawbacks associated with having wires running through the body, he said.
Antarctica
Sheehy’s run on the southern end of the planet marked the fifth continent he has visited in his worldwide marathon tour, and he said he still wants to run marathons in Africa and South America.
Although he faced freezing weather and punishing snow, Sheehy said he also got to see amazing sights and watch penguins cross the race course.
The course was specially designed to keep runners safe, he noted. Runners had to be especially mindful not to leave anything behind, such as wrappers or snacks, he added.
While he doesn’t strive to get the best times or place high like he did when he was younger, Sheehy is still very much driven to run, although it’s more about the fun and adventure. He said it’s about, “What is that next challenge? What’s that next opportunity?
“I’m still competitive,” Sheehy said. “I still train for them, but it’s the mindset now of ‘Don’t die wondering. Go explore. Go see the world.’”
Sheehy hopes his story and mission to run all seven continents could help inspire other people facing similar health challenges. People don’t need to give up on their goals or dreams just because they have a pacemaker, he said.
In the years since he had his pacemaker implanted, Sheehy said he’s had people reach out who had their own heart concerns, asking about his story.
It’s fairly common to see people running for charity or to raise awareness for illnesses — it’s something Sheehy has done, and seen others do as well. He argued that running is one of the most accessible things someone can do.
“We all can do it,” he said. “There’s no special equipment. Running just comes naturally to all of us. It’s hard, yes, but you can do it.”
It also crosses cultures with ease. When running with people from around the world, they can still understand each other, he said.
“You don’t know the language, but you all know how to run,” Sheehy said. “It’s a very universal language.”
Up next? Sheehy said, South Africa.
