The New York City Marathon is just getting underway. There are two events being held along the short Bronx portion of the event: Yes the Bronx and Project Obesity are holding their annual Energize the Bronx gathering at Willis Wall Island, at E.135th Street and Willis Avenue, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Bronxmedia will provide live entertainment from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 139th Street and Morris Avenue. In the meantime, we offer this story about one of the Bronxites running today.

By Emily Piccone

Six years ago, Rob Vassilarakis was coming up from the East 138th 5 train station when he was suddenly hit with a wave of energy that would change his life for good. It turned out to be New York City marathon runners charging through the 20-mile mark.

“I was coming up the stairs and I could hear the feet of all the runners and I’m like, what is that?” Rob remembers. “It was this energy, this overwhelming, beautiful energy that just embraces you. Being an addict, I was loving the feeling.”

By October of 2006, Rob had been living in and out of jobs, on and off the streets, HIV positive, and battling a crystal meth addiction for the past 18 years. He still remembers the exact day of that month when he finally sat down to a computer, Googled “drug treatment NYC,” and checked into a rehab center.

You wouldn’t know it seeing him today, sitting comfortably in a purple button-down shirt and slacks at his desk in the ‘El Faro’ rehab clinic, a program of Harlem United, where he works with HIV/AIDS patients. From his firm handshake, to his confident smile, he exudes health. And today, as part of his second time running a marathon, he will be the sole representative of the Bronx in the Foot Locker 5 Borough Challenge, a race for charity within the massive ING Marathon.

When he was 17, just shy of his eighteenth birthday, Rob’s mother read a personal journal of his, and upon finding out he was gay, threw him out of the family’s house on Long Island.

After getting thrown out, Rob moved into a quickly all consuming lifestyle on the Lower East Side.

“It felt like a blessing and a curse. Once she found out, I could live my life as an out gay man, but I fell into a lot of the things that young people on their own might fall into,” Rob said.

After battling with feelings of neglect from his upbringing, the attention Rob received in the clubs he started to work at became as addictive as the drugs that went with the scene.

“I found that this sort of persona started to seep out of the club scene,” Rob said. “The people that would frequent the clubs would also frequent the blocks — Christopher Street, 8th Ave. — so the people giving you all kinds of attention, offering you all kind of drugs and money were also walking the streets.”

The ensuing long downward, 18-year spiral brought Rob to the darkest of places in his life. After testing positive for HIV in 1993, Rob put a seven-year timeline in his mind, but by 2001, he was still not on medication.

“The only answer is that God had a larger purpose for me, and that I needed to walk down that very dark road to get to where I am today. Sometimes I used to ask myself, why me? Why am I still alive?”

At a crystal meth anonymous meeting, he was introduced to the Harlem United ‘El Faro’ Rehabilitation Center and spent a large portion of his recovery year in art therapy classes provided by the center.

His running addiction began after a faithful friend urged him to come watch her run in the annual city marathon, where he was hit with the intensity of the colossal event at the 138th station. A few days later he went on his first five-mile run.

“For me, running is the ultimate Prozac,” he says. “I’ve never experienced a high like it.”

Rob logged the majority of his training miles for this Sunday’s marathon in the Bronx, one of the few places in New York City where he doesn’t see many other runners.

“I run through some drug infested neighborhoods,” he said. “I see people that are maybe heroin addicts or on methadone, and when I’m with my running buddies, people stop dead in their tracks. My guess is that they’re hit with that same energy that I felt when coming up from the train.”

Through representing the Bronx and running for Harlem United ‘El Faro,’ Rob hopes his story will bring hope and the power of ability to those people suffering with addictions.

“When I went into rehab, I was told I was part of the 1% recovery rate from crystal meth, so there were all these odds stacked up against me, and now I’m finally free. I’m free to run 26.2 miles for the charity of my choice.”