How to recover from a heart attack: running was the perfect medicine for man who had never done sport before – now he does marathons
- Dhananjay Yellurkar took up running after open heart surgery following a heart attack at 46, induced by stress at work and genetic factors, he says
- From the treadmill he started running on the streets and has now completed a marathon on six continents – and will run on the seventh in May
Dhananjay Yellurkar is a poster boy for what a heart patient can achieve.
He suffered a heart attack at the age of 46 and underwent open heart surgery. Seven months later, he ran in his first half-marathon.
Now, at age 59, Yellurkar is preparing for the Santiago Marathon in Chile, in May, to complete his quest of running a marathon on each of the seven continents.
Over the past 13 years, Yellurkar, the chief risk officer at NIIF Infrastructure Finance in Mumbai, India, has run 12 half-marathons, 10 marathons and an ultramarathon.
He has chronicled his metamorphosis from a struggling patient in the aftermath of his surgery into a passionate long-distance runner in his book, Fuel for My Journey, A Memoir About Running Marathons Post Cardiac Surgery, published in 2022.
His story is one of tenacity, grit and hope.
