CLERMONT, Fla. — “So I’m now switching from my walking legs to the running ones,” Marko Cheseto says as he slips on his blade-like custom running prosthetics.

Marko Cheseto is a champion distance-runner who lives, trains in Clermont

While grieving, he overdosed on medication, contracted frostbite in Alaska

He says facing his mortality has given him new perspective on life

Cheseto lives and trains in Clermont, Florida, home of the 10 Mile Clay Loop . His feet were amputated almost a decade ago. He says the running surface here feels good.

“It’s not paved so it’s good for the knees and hips, so I like this,” Cheseto says as he starts stretching.

The orange clay makes Clermont a destination for some of the best runners in the country. In Cheseto’s case, the world.

“Sometimes when I pull some pictures from here people, are like, 'Are you in Kenya?' ”

Kenya is where his story begins.

“Growing up in Kenya looking back now, it was not easy growing up. But the lifestyle, going to school running to school, going to the market to buy some things for the house, all those added up to that endurance for running.”

In Kenya, Cheseto followed the path set by many runners before him. He ran track at a Kenyan College. In 2006 he started getting recruited by American Schools. His father sold his farm animals and his shop to get him to the United States.

“My dad had twenty kids, two wives so my mom, eleven of us and the other wife nine. So imagine spending everything that you have on one kid.”

In 2008 Cheseto traded in the sand for the snow. He joined the track and cross country team at the University of Alaska Anchorage on scholarship.

“Never seen something that falls from the sky other than the rain and you never get wet,” Cheseto says about his first time seeing snow. “And you don’t even feel it falling. It’s just like dust.”

In 2010, his cousin William Ritekwiang came over from Kenya and joined the team too.

“He was doing good in school, he was doing well in running. There was no red flags anywhere,” Cheseto remembers.

February 19, 2011 is a date Cheseto won’t forget. He was working at a gym on campus when his phone rang. It was William; he wanted to talk.

“I didn’t see any need to go talk to him at the moment,” Cheseto says. “It was Friday; I said we’ll talk later. We don’t have anything going on tomorrow; there are no classes, so we’ll talk. But then we came home and he had hanged himself.”

Cheseto took the loss hard. He blamed himself and says he slipped into depression.

“As an African man, you’re not going to accept that you’re having a mental breakdown. And even like now that I go around and share my story, a lot of people still have that mentality even here in the U.S. People don’t say, 'You know, I just snapped.' ”

Marko was prescribed antidepressants and started getting counseling. University of Alaska Anchorage records show that on April 2, 2011 campus police responded to a medical call. Marko had overdosed on his medication. He was taken to a local hospital where he stayed for 28 days. He says he felt better that summer, but by the fall his depression returned.

“By November of that year, I was not seeing any light at the end of the tunnel as we would say,” Cheseto says. “So one night that year, I took some antidepressants and went for a run. So I passed out from an overdose from that.”

Cheseto went missing in the Alaska woods for 56 hours.

“The only thing I remember from that run was me getting up in the middle of the night and the moon was shining so bright and there was a ton of snow on the ground,” Cheseto remembers. “At the time, my head was so clear and I knew I was in the wrong place, and if I didn’t get out of that place as soon as I can, I knew something bad was going to happen to me.”

Frozen and lost, Cheseto only knew one thing: He wanted to live.

“And that adrenaline rush knowing that I was about to die gave me that energy to try and get up and get out of there.”

Cheseto later told police that he followed the sound of cars, then he saw lights. Those lights led him to a hotel lobby. Cheseto was quickly taken to a hospital and treated for frostbite. After three days, the doctors were able to save his hands, but not his feet.

“At that moment in life, you are asking yourself, 'What am I supposed to tell myself now?' ” Cheseto says. “Somebody walks in and says, 'We are going to cut your feet,' and these are the feet that guided you across the globe from Kenya to Alaska, and all of a sudden they are going to be gone.”

After surgery, Cheseto's physical transformation was obvious. But something changed mentally, too.

“I realized at that moment, things will happen in life, some you may have control and some you will never have control over them. You just have to live through them, and this is one of them.”

It’s been almost a decade since Cheseto lost his feet. Now he builds them.

“Let me get my protective gear,” Cheseto says in a room full of prosthetic molds and equipment.

Cheseto now uses his own experience to help make custom prosthetics for Stan Patterson’s patients at Prosthetic and Orthotics Associates in Orlando.

“I think it’s one of those great comeback stories,” Patterson says. “It’s what we all look at in the U.S. We don’t count anyone out.:

After recovering from surgery, Cheseto first started running again in 2013. He was originally training to be a sprinter in the Paralympics. He was getting his prosthetics made in Orlando. By 2018, Patterson convinced Cheseto to move to Florida, work for him, and go back into distance running.

“And you know, I started training right away, and that year, I ran the New York City marathon,” Cheseto says.

He has also run the Boston and Chicago marathons. He currently holds the fastest known time by a double amputee.

“I always feel like this is the second chance I was given,” Cheseto says. “To do all the things that I had planned to do or what I want to achieve in life.”

Cheseto now has a wife and three kids. He has a job he loves and a running career that’s earned him a sponsorship from Nike.

Most importantly, he’s happy.

“As human beings, we have tremendous power to overcome adversity. I want that kid out there or somebody watching this story to know that you can overcome anything in life. It’s you telling yourself, 'You’ve got this.' ”