Learn how Lynbrook's resident Amy Cannon is training for the New York City Marathon

Just like training for a marathon, the journey to recovery for drug addicts is long, tedious, and requires a lot of work.

Lynbrook resident Amy Cannon is one of the thousands of people training for the Nov. 3 New York City Marathon.

After reading “Can’t Hurt Me,” by David Goggins, Cannon was inspired to push herself past her personal limits to start training for the marathon.

Working with the charity Shatterproof, she will be running in honor of her brother, Nick, who died of an accidental heroin overdose four years ago.

This won’t be Cannon’s first race. She ran the marathon in 2020, but due to the pandemic, she ran in her neighborhood instead of the five-borough course.

Then, earlier this year, her 16-year-old son gave her the book by Goggins, which sparked this latest inspiration to run the 2024 marathon.

“(Goggins) is all about overcoming obstacles and not using your fear to get in the way of living a better life,” Cannon said. “Then, I don’t know why, but I woke up one morning and it was almost like a voice told me you should run the New York City Marathon.”

Cannon said a sudden, strong urge to run 26.2 miles overtook her. She focused this feeling into running for a cause. After researching different charities to partner with, she eventually landed on Shatterproof.

The process behind partnering with a charity isn’t easy, Cannon explained. She said that you can’t just go to a marathon and choose to run for any charity.

She said you need to contact them, set up an interview, and if they like your story, then they will select you to wear their charity’s bib.

Cannon said that after she told them about her brother, she was accepted onto their team. She was asked to raise a minimum of $5,000 and she currently raises over $4,100. By partnering with Shatterproof, Cannon hopes to raise awareness of how common addiction is and how it can affect anybody in any walk of life.

It really affects a lot of people, and a lot of people are afraid to talk about it,” Cannon said. “And I think by me putting myself out there, it’s been a way to get people talking.”

Cannon said that Nick was a hard worker, had a huge heart, and was most proud of being an uncle to her kids. She explained that he got involved with a group of people who proved to be a bad influences on him.

This is particularly why Cannon believes it is so important to get the conversations on addiction started and, more specifically, talk about peer pressure.

“When you have an addictive gene, you don’t even know it sometimes until it’s too late,” she said.
Nick tried several times to get sober, Cannon noted, but for him, being inebriated made him feel in control. Cannon explained that heroin is a death sentence. Nick, just shy of his 40th birthday, died due to fentanyl being mixed with the heroin that he ingested.

“And when I heard that, I had to Google it because I didn’t even know what it was,” Cannon said. “And then when I found out what it is and how even the tiniest little dose of it can stop your heart, it’s really scary.”

This sparked multiple conversations between Cannon and her children. She started normalizing conversations about drug addiction, informing them what fentanyl, cocaine, heroin, and other drugs are, as well as the dangers.

“When they have the information, they are armed with it and can make better decisions,” Cannon said. “If it’s something that’s never talked about, it’s never going to be talked about it until it’s too late.”

Cannon is hoping by running in the marathon for her brother, it will ignite conversations in families about heroin addiction and overdoses. By opening the door to starting these conversations, Cannon hopes that she can save one life, which is what she believes her brother would have wanted her to do.

Currently, Cannon believes that there are not enough services for people suffering with addiction. She noted that rehab is expensive, preventing people from checking themselves in and getting the help they need.

“The amount of work that you have to do on your own and the depth of how bad you would want to get clean would have to be so large that I feel like you have to check yourself in somewhere and you have to learn a whole new way of life,” Cannon said.

According to Cannon, once people check themselves out of rehab, there is not enough assistance from the federal, state, or local governments to get them back on their feet. Cannon explained that’s why nonprofit organizations like Shatterproof are so important.

“We have all the little people doing things like this, like having runners run a marathon and try to win at least $5,000 a piece because for someone to go to rehab, that costs a lot of money,” Cannon said. “So, our country could do 1,000 percent better.”

By running in this marathon, Cannon said she wants to send the message that you people can do anything they put their mind to.

“And one of the quotes in that great book I read, he said ‘you’re either getting better or you’re getting worse. You’re never staying the same’,” Cannon said. “And this is the way for me to be better and not just be better physically, but to be better in ways that I’m raising awareness and getting people to talk about something that nobody wants to talk about.”

To help Cannon in raising money for Shatterproof, you can donate at TinyURL.com/4nk7b9rx.