Meet Aaron Burros

This year we are joined by a man running 50 marathons in 50 states for his 50th birthday. Aaron Burros plans to run his 38th marathon of the year in Baltimore on October 9th.

His running journey begins way before his 50th year! Back in 2010, Burros was almost 400 pounds and decided it was time to make a change, so he turned to running.

Burros lost 100 pounds in a year and decided to start running to continue to lose weight. “I ended up telling my friend that used to run cross country that I tried running 3 miles, and I was in so much pain. And he challenged me to keep it up and run 2 miles a day for six days and give him a call on the 7th day. And since then, I was hooked.”

Burros was beginning to get a hold on his life and weight when a tragic event occurred on November 28th, 2015, when a shooter opened fire at Aaron’s workplace. After hearing the commotion from the back room, Burros made a brave decision to run toward the shooter to help his co-workers. After assuring that his colleagues safely got away, Burros faced one of the shooters head-on and was shot, falling to the floor. Luckily for Burros, the bullet missed his torso and hit the floor. After that missed shot, he got up and decided to run. He was hit in both glutes as he ran, but he managed to get to safety without being shot fatally.

Burros still battles with depression, anxiety, and PTSD from the 2015 shooting, but he continues to run to give himself a sense of purpose and relief. “As I began planning with my psychologist and psychiatrist something I could do to help me regain a sense of purpose for life and rebuild my hope in humanity (after being shot several times in a workplace shooting and suffering from an extreme case of PTSD), I decided to celebrate my 50th birthday year and raise funds for St. Jude children’s Research Hospital.”

Now Burros runs for another purpose- fundraising for St. Jude Research Hospital in Tennessee, and he has almost reached his goal of $50,000.