This 71-Year-Old Is Running Across America to Shine a Light on Parkinson's Disease

Larry Grogin turned 71 the same morning he started running across America. On that morning, he ran a marathon.

He plans to do it again the next day, and the day after that, for one hundred consecutive days, from northern New Jersey to California.

The twist is that Grogin has Parkinson’s disease.

He was diagnosed in 2019.

His answer to that diagnosis is roughly 2,600 miles on foot to raise money for the Davis Phinney Foundation, a nonprofit that funds exercise programs for people living with the condition.

His slogan is short, and it is the entire point of the run.

Movement is medicine.

What He Is Actually Doing, Day by Day

Grogin left Montvale, New Jersey on his birthday in late March 2026.

His planned finish line is Calabasas, California, in early July.

Along the way he is aiming to raise $100 for every mile run, roughly $260,000 total for the Davis Phinney Foundation.

The daily routine is unusual. It is also the most useful part of the story for any runner.

The three-hour warmup

Grogin wakes at around 4:30 a.m. every day. Before he steps outside, he spends roughly three hours warming up on a treadmill.

That is not a typo.

Parkinson’s stiffens muscles and slows the body’s ability to shift from rest to movement.

In his own description, in the morning he can look like he can barely walk. Seven hours later, on the road, he looks like a runner again.

The lesson for the rest of us is quieter but real. Warmups are usually the first thing runners skip when they are pressed for time.

Grogin does not have that luxury, and the payoff on the other side is a full marathon.

Cross-training everything else

Grogin’s preparation was not just miles. His weekly training combined strength work, swimming, cycling and pickleball, alongside his running.

He values pickleball less for the cardio and more for the reflexes and reaction time that Parkinson’s slowly erodes.

That mix is not a Parkinson’s trick. It is the same principle behind why cross-training matters for every runner, particularly older ones.

Running alone is not enough of a stimulus to protect coordination, upper-body strength, or bone density.

Why "Movement Is Medicine" Is Not a Slogan

The medical evidence is now stronger than a lot of runners realize.

A 2024 review in the journal Brain Sciences on exercise and Parkinson’s concluded that aerobic exercise and resistance training produce a measurable, disease-modifying effect on both motor and non-motor symptoms.

The mechanism, in plain language, is that exercise increases the release of exerkines, bioactive molecules that appear to protect the dopaminergic neurons that Parkinson’s is destroying.

The formal write-up is worth reading if you want the receipts, in this open-access NIH review on exercise, exerkines and Parkinson’s disease.

It matters for a much broader group than Parkinson’s patients.

The same neuroprotective pathways are why running is so consistently linked to better cognitive outcomes in older adults, a pattern seen in how running helps older women live longer, healthier lives.

What Runners Can Take From His Method

Grogin is not asking anyone to copy his weekly mileage. He is asking runners, and non-runners, to notice a smaller set of things he does every day.

Four of them are worth borrowing.

1. Warm up like you mean it

A 15 to 20 minute walk-jog before the first hard step is not lost training. It is the reason the training happens at all.

If a 71-year-old with a neurodegenerative condition gives it three hours, most healthy runners can find fifteen minutes.

2. Build a repeatable morning

Early alarm, light breakfast, treadmill, road. The same structure, seven days a week.

It is not romantic and it is not glamorous. It is what allows a person with unpredictable "off times" to string together 100 marathons.

The repeatability is the point. Motivation is a fickle input.

A quiet daily template is a much better one.

3. Slow the running down, not the schedule

Grogin has been open about his pace. It is slow.

A marathon a day for one hundred days is only possible at a pace that keeps effort well below threshold. That is not a limitation, it is the strategy.

The same idea applies to your long runs, and to why coaches keep repeating that slowing down on recovery days actually makes you faster.

4. Tie the training to something bigger than you

Grogin has said, more than once, that his run is not about proving he is tough. It is about giving other people permission to start.

His fundraising target is $260,000 for a foundation that helps Parkinson’s patients afford the exercise equipment and gym access that could slow their disease.

Every runner does not need a cause.

But a purpose that lives outside your own PR is what carries you through the days you would otherwise skip.

The Bigger Picture

The population of runners over 65 is growing faster than any other age band in the sport. Grogin is not an outlier, he is a preview.

He joins a small but visible group of older runners rewriting what the second half of life looks like, from the 70-year-old who ran his first marathon and refused to stop to the 80-year-old Ironman record holder whose five daily habits keep her fit for life.

Grogin’s only claim, over and over, is that if he can do this, you can do the thing you have been putting off.

He is not superhuman. He warms up for three hours because he has to.

He is on his feet, though. Every single day.

That, he says, is the entire point.