Two Grafton dads running two marathons for one special cause

GRAFTON, Mass. — Chris Marino and Octavio Melo, or Oggie, as he’s known, hit the road early most mornings.

“Somehow we just started running together and that’s really how it started,” Marino said.

The Grafton neighbors bond over running and their families. Both have teenage boys with rare diseases.

“It was a lot of conversation and therapy and talking to Chris about that,” Melo said.

Melo’s 15-year-old son, Jameson, was diagnosed with Sturge-Weber Syndrome, a neurological disease, as a toddler. Chris’s son, 13-year-old Braden, was diagnosed with Adrenoleukodystrophy, or ALD, in 2019. ALD is a rare, sometimes fatal, genetic condition that damages the membrane that covers nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. Braden will battle it for the rest of his life. There’s no treatment and many of the symptoms are MS-like.

That’s why the two dads are running to raise money and awareness about A-L-D. Melo will compete in the Newport Marathon, his first-ever full marathon, on Sunday. You can view the fundraiser here.

“I also don’t want to do it just to check the box and say I ran a marathon. I want to make it meaningful and do something important with it versus just doing it for myself I wanted to do something bigger than that,” he said.

A day later Marion will run the Boston Marathon. A first for the veteran marathoner. All the money they raise will go directly to Braden’s neurologist at Mass General for research.

This is not the first fundraiser on Braden’s behalf. In August 2020, his father ran all 345 streets in Grafton to raise awareness of ALD https://www.boston25news.com/news/running-miles-ald-grafton-fathers-mission-fund-research/X5YIHDZIZJB5JKGG6BU3VKYOTE/.

In March 2021 Chris Marino completed the 4x4x48 Challenge. He ran four miles, every four hours, for 48 hours to also raise awareness of ALD.

If you have a Positively Massachusetts story idea, contact Boston25 anchor Chris Flanagan at PositivelyMA@Boston25.com.

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