In an enormous feat, 57-year-old Brett Sobieraski has run 50 marathons in 50 days to honor the memory of his fallen colleague Anthony Mazurkiewicz and raise money for his family.
On July 21, 2022, 54-year-old police officer Anthony “Tony” Mazurkiewicz was killed in a shooting that also injured another officer and bystander. Mazurkiewicz was a 29-year-old veteran of the Rochester Police Department in Rochester, New York. He is survived by his wife, Lynn Mazurkiewicz, their four children, and three grandchildren.
Loved ones describe Mazurkiewicz as a “super dad,” an exemplary employee, and the type of person everyone wanted to be around. “He was amazing,” Lynn Mazurkiewicz told NBC News anchor Harry Smith in a TODAY show segment that aired July 20, 2023.
Honoring a fallen colleague with a marathon a day
Earlier this spring, Mazurkiewicz’s former colleague Sgt. Brett Sobieraski decided to honor his fallen colleague and raise money for his family by doing what seemed like the impossible: running one marathon a day for almost two months along the east coast.
Sobieraski is a 57-year-old retired sergeant on the Rochester Police Department’s SWAT team who currently lives in Rochester, New York and enjoys spending his days of retirement doing ultra-marathons and other endurance sports. Several months after Tony Mazurkiewicz was killed, Sobieraski decided to take action.
“I knew I wanted to do something and it just came to me in the middle of the night … that I’m going to run marathons through eight states,” Sobieraski tells TODAY.com. “Tony worked in the elite tactical unit within Rochester Police Department and their number designator is eight,” says Sobieraski, explaining his decision to run the marathons through eight states.
Prior to this, Tony’s wife had never met Sobieraski, but she had heard about him from her husband. “Tony would say that guy (Brett) is crazy and he’d tell me stories about what Brett…
Read the full article here
