CHICAGO — It’s 5:30 a.m. on a Friday morning and Andre Davis is stretching under the orange glow of a South Michigan Avenue streetlamp at the south end of Grant Park. He’s one of only a handful of people outside that early. In the darkness before dawn, he’s ready to begin doing what he does every morning: chasing daylight.
“Living in the moment and running toward the sun,” Davis said.
Wearing a weighted vest, and an anguished expression, he is putting himself through a punishing workout. He said he knows the gift of another sunrise is never guaranteed.
“I have a family history of heart disease, diabetes and cancer in my family,” he said. “My father died of heart disease at 39. My mother died of cancer at 52.”
So, the 59-year-old grandfather views exercise as a critical defense against disease – a sort of medicine for the body and the mind.
“I don’t feel 59,” he said. “I feel like I’m 25. Age is just a number. Just go out and do something.”
He ran more than a mile to the Art Institute, where he stopped to do pushups, jumping jacks, bear crawls and burpees.