For as long as he’d been a runner, Leo Merle had been a distance man, running the 5K and 10K. But when the native of Folsom, California, began racing in Para competitions a few years ago, he discovered his T38 classification maxed out at 1,500 meters.

Merle has since gone all-in on the middle-distance race, and now he has no plans to try any others.

“Every race is an improvement just because you get new tactics, and you are faced off against new, interesting people, and how they run,” Merle said. “It’s much more of a tactile race.”

Merle’s focus on the 1,500 paid off at the 2023 Parapan American Games in Santiago, Chile. In the men’s T38 final, his 4:12.62 finish earned him the gold medal and was almost a second ahead of runner-up Liam Stanley of Canada (4:13:60).

That was Merle’s first international win, besting his fourth-place finish from the 2023 world championships last July.

“The whole experience while we were there was otherworldly,” Merle, 26, said. “It was an incredible experience, incredible people to be around.”

Merle’s experience in Santiago came in the middle of his final year at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry. He has a caseload of 70 or so patients and works with up to 10 of them a week, assisting with all their dental needs.

Athletics is certainly important to Merle, but he doesn’t let it affect his schoolwork. Since he has been running for over a decade, running itself has become part of his routine, like “having breakfast or going to the bathroom.”

Overall, Merle said he’s found dentistry and running to be complementary.

On days when he does a longer workout, he makes sure he’s not scheduled with any dental patients. The days when he both sees patients and trains can be taxing, but Merle said running after a long day with patients allows him to take his mind off the busyness of the day and relax.

“I like to have two major projects going on at similar times,” he said. “If I get burnt out over running, it’s like, ‘OK, we’ll pivot over to dentistry. Do a little bit of work, and kind of take my mind off the running.’ And when I’m overworked and overwhelmed with dentistry, it’s like, ‘OK, we’ll pivot back to the running, kind of work on that, going around and relax a little bit.’”

Merle was born with cerebral palsy, a condition that affects one’s ability to control their balance and movements. Merle’s form of CP is milder than some, and he said he initially did not think he would qualify for Para sports.

When he started his athletic career, Merle raced against athletes who did not have disabilities, and they were much faster than him.

His perspective changed when he saw a recap of the men’s 1,500 T37 final from the Paralympic Games London 2012.

“I remember watching it, and just thinking to myself, ‘I think I fit in this category,’” he said.

He started researching how to get involved, and he was able to get in a classification event at the U.S. championships in 2019.

While he is thankful for the opportunity to compete in Para track and field, he is not losing sight of the bigger picture. Merle knows his adaptive sports career will not last forever, and he is already planning for the moment he retires.

“I want to push the sport and do as best as I possibly can,” he said. “At some point, I know my biological clock is going to kick in, and I’m not going to be able to race as aggressively as I want.”

Confident in what the future will bring, Merle is happy to live in the moment juggling his busy life of athletics and academics.

“At the very end of the day, I’ll be a dentist,” he said. “For now, I’m a runner. I’m an athlete.”

Ryan Wilson is a writer and independent documentary filmmaker from Champaign, Illinois. He is a freelance contributor to usparatf.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.

Balancing Running And Dentistry Helps Leo Merle Excel In Both Pursuits

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