From bypass surgery to Boston: Ian Kinsella’s inspiring story
After a heart attack led to the most traumatic year of his life, the competitive Toronto-based runner is grateful for his health and has a new outlook on running
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Ian Kinsella
One year ago, doctors told Toronto’s Ian Kinsella he was lucky to be alive and might never run again, but on Monday, the 2:35-marathoner will step onto his “proudest start line yet” at the Boston Marathon.
Kinsella underwent double bypass heart surgery on October 4, 2023, and, while the operation was successful, he never thought he would make it back to a race like Boston. Kinsella says the road to recovery has been difficult, and that it’s given him a new perspective on running and life.
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A lifelong runner and talented athlete, Kinsella is used to pushing his body. A well-known fixture on the Ontario running scene, he used to race multiple times a season. Last June, he began to experience strange symptoms that he initially brushed off as anxiety.
After his symptoms worsened to include pain on his left side and in his esophagus, uncontrollable sweating and vomiting, Kinsella stopped running altogether and got checked out by a sports cardiologist at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto.
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Tests revealed he had likely suffered a heart attack in June and there was serious damage to his heart.
Thanks to the great care he received by his medical team, Kinsella was able to start walking toward the end of the summer; after his surgery in October, he gradually began running again, with the approval of his cardiologist.
“My recovery has not been linear,” he says. “There have been many setbacks, and the hardest part has been the mental side.”
Eight weeks ago, Kinsella found himself in a dark place, mentally. The magnitude of the past year had caught up to him, and though his body was on the mend, his mind had not caught up.
“I’m a middle-aged Irish man–we don’t talk about our feelings,” joked an ever-positive Kinsella. “It was really tough to stop and realize I needed help.”
Reaching out to his network, starting therapy and taking steps to rebuild his mental health has made all the difference. “My therapist has compared the mental training we’re doing to strength training,” he explains. “I am now the healthiest I have ever been, mentally, since starting this work.”
While Kinsella isn’t aiming for sub-elite times on the road anymore, he’s excited to hit the roads of Boston and experience the joy of just running.
“My advice to any runner is to zoom out and look at what it takes to get to a start line healthy,” he says. “That in itself is a huge accomplishment. The race is just one small part of it all.”
Canadian Running is at the 2024 Boston Marathon with Under Armour to celebrate the launch of the Velociti Elite 2, the brand’s fastest carbon racing shoe to date. Be sure to stay plugged into our socials on Instagram and X for everything Boston this weekend.
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