A Real Iron Man

Adam Gorlitsky may have crossed the finish line nearly three hours after the race began, and riding in a golf cart, but he was surely the biggest winner of last week’s Run the Landing race at Charles Towne Landing.
Gorlitsky, paralyzed from the waist down for the better part of the last decade after a car accident, took part in the final 5k race in this year’s series with the help of a $80,000 high-zoot exoskeleton that enables him to walk.
Gorlitsky made headlines earlier this year when he finished the 10-kiliometer Cooper River Bridge Run.
And then he followed up his success by finishing a downtown 5k the next night. He is the only multiple-race competitor using an exoskeleton in the world.
Sure, Jay Upchurch of James Island turned in the fastest time – 16:52, for a 5:26 pace, outrunning the second place finisher, 13-year-old Zane Jackson of North Charleston, by just over a minute.
Even though he started too late to finish, because of failing light, Gorlitsky counted the race as a victory on his march to creating a “disability network” of races across America for competitors like himself. Gorlitsky had to call it quits at the 2.5-mile marker.
“It’s a great race with a lot of hills,” said the former Wando High athlete. “Even with the exoskelton, I can’t feel my legs, due to the accident, and the slightest variation in terrain really makes it challenging” in the robotic suit.
“It’s like being in a rollercoaster where I don’t feel my legs. It’s weird,” he says. “When I first get into the suit, and initially go up that first hill, when I first get up and am warming up, I feel that same anxiety you feel slowly going up the first ramp on a coaster.”
“With races like this one, ones with lots of hills, I feel llike that a lot, but when I get out of the suit, I’m like, ‘Woo, that was so much fun.’”
“I was shooting hoops in the ‘exo’ in February, and I made a three-pointer,” said the former high school basketball player. “I just remember it being the most amazing feeling. I was always a good three-point shooter in the day. Making that three and finishing a race, walking all those miles – those two accomplishments are on par for me.”
Gorlitsky, who turned 30 two weeks ago, said that every race he takes part in helps his confidence.