BRICK – Christine Conti of Brick has been making headlines for years now, and she just keeps adding more accomplishments under her belt.
She was heavily involved with sports as a child and dreamed of playing volleyball full-time, but people around her insisted it was just a hobby. She ended up studying business throughout college and made an impressive career for herself as an investment banker in New York City before she decided to get her Master’s degree in education and leadership. This allowed her to go into teaching, where she was able to coach the sports she once loved.
At age 30, she began suffering from a very aggressive autoimmune disease. It completely derailed her life. She underwent chemotherapy for nearly 10 years – but her outlook grew more positive every day.
The sicknesses changed her entire perspective and she began making a bucket list of everything she wanted to do if she couldn’t walk in the future. Brought back to her love of fitness, she insisted that staying active would be the one thing to save her – because once you stop moving, it’s really hard to get back up. She started running, involved herself with a few races, and somehow, she ended up qualifying for the Boston Marathon.
She first qualified in 2001, the year of the Boston Bombings. Thankfully, luck kept her safe as she found out she was pregnant before the race and didn’t compete that year. This is Conti’s 14th year qualifying but her 13th year running, and she says she loves it more every year.
Her goal is not to win. It’s to help. She runs for the Alzheimer’s Association in remembrance of her family and friends who have passed from the disease. She wears their bib during the run to advocate, which helps spread awareness of the association and increase donations. She’s also a guide for people with autism or Down syndrome who want to compete. For years, she ran alongside them to help them get through the race. This year, she stepped back to focus on her own run.
Conti is a firm believer that moving in any way you can is the most important thing a person can do for themselves. She is also a disease wellness specialist, and has done a lot of research on the mental effects of exercise. She’s had the privilege of traveling around the world to talk to specialists and attend lectures.
New studies are coming out every year that show how exercise can balance your cortisol and dopamine levels, as well as stimulate your frontal lobe. The act of running, as well, is rhythmic. The repetitive motion helps to stimulate your brain. These benefits combined contribute to biogenesis, or the regeneration of cells; this actively helps your body fight diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. That’s not to say running will outright stop those diseases – there’s still no cure. But it can delay them. It can also make the difficulties of living with those illnesses easier to manage.
Conti believes that once she stops moving, it’s all over. The second you give up, your joints begin wearing down and muscle atrophy takes over. For her, it’s not about running. The Boston Marathon is not about the race. It’s about staying healthy and active. The Marathon itself has a beautiful course, and Conti insists that it’s the best part. The sights, the people cheering, the other runners – they’re all more rewarding than a single win could ever be.
As an inspirational speaker and an author, her website is contifit.com.
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