Paradis grandfather runs the Boston Marathon with his son in honor of his late grandson

Danny and Daniel Ledet ran the Boston Marathon last month in honor of Noah Ledet.

Danny Ledet of Paradis, along with his son Daniel, completed April’s Boston Marathon in honor of Daniel’s son Noah.

“He was kind enough to run at my pace because he’s much faster than me,” Danny said of Daniel. “We ran it in Noah’s memory. Noah was born in November of 2014. They knew before he was born he would need help … he had congenital heart disease. Noah was in the hospital for his first Christmas and the surgery went as planned… then one day that February his little heart just stopped.”

Danny said his wife Robin, as well as Daniel’s wife and three children, all took the trip to Boston together. The father and son duo ran on Miles for Miracles – a team assembled to run and fundraise for Boston Children’s Hospital. The hospital is where Noah spent a third of his short life, which made the marathon mission that much more personal.

“They have 250 people on their team,” Danny said. “We went through an interview process, and they want to know your ‘why.’ Why do you want to do this? Well we had a really good why.”

The Ledets joined in on the Miles for Miracle’s fundraising effort as well, which aims to raise $3.3. million by May 8.

“That’s the magnitude of what they’re trying to do,” Danny said, adding that the energy at the marathon was comparable to a local tradition.

“It was like being at Mardi Gras,” he said. “The streets were lined with people and it’s like we were the floats. The crowds were wild. There were over 30,000 runners, and the run is a Monday which is Patriots Day there so everyone was off of work and in the streets.”

Danny said that both his and Daniel’s shirts had Noah’s name written on the back of them, and that as they ran by they could hear the crowd calling out Noah’s name.

“That was really special,” he said.

Robin said that this year’s race was the tenth anniversary of the infamous bombing at the marathon, which made the whole experience that much more emotional for the family.

“Just to see the people there and know what they were doing it for … and then to be there on the ten-year anniversary … it was all so emotional,” she said crying. “It was very, very moving. I’m proud of them for them doing it.”

 

About Monique Roth 919 Articles
Roth has both her undergraduate and graduate degree in journalism, which she has utilized in the past as an instructor at Southeastern Louisiana University and a reporter at various newspapers and online publications. She grew up in LaPlace, where she currently resides with her husband and three daughters.

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