On July 10, 1998, Ken Balkey died. Ten weeks later he ran in the Richard S. Caliguiri City of Pittsburgh Great Race.

Mr. Balkey, 56, of Churchill, is one of only 26 runners to compete in every race since its inception in 1977, but there's no doubt he's had the most to overcome to keep the streak going.

Months before he went into cardiac arrest, Mr. Balkey, a consulting engineer for Westinghouse, was out on a training run and felt something odd. "I just noticed something wasn't right. My heart felt like it was beating outside my chest. It was strange." He just thought that he was tired, and he jogged home. But during his next run Mr. Balkey began to hyperventilate. He stopped, checked his pulse and thought his heart was skipping beats.

His friend and neighbor Dr. David Steed sent him directly to a cardiologist. Mr. Balkey was diagnosed with a condition called atrial flutter. A nerve was causing the upper chambers of his heart to beat 300 to 400 times a minute. He wondered if the running had caused it, but doctors assured him that it did not. Rather, they said, his running had exposed the problem.

Doctors planned to do something called electro cardioversion to shock the heart and get it beating correctly. "While I was getting prepared to have this procedure, I was obviously anxious and I ended up going into tachycardia fibrillation, then went into full sudden cardiac arrest."

A nurse performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation until doctors arrived and were able to start his heart.

Mr. Balkey lay in a coma for one full day and there were questions whether he would ever regain his brain function again. But two days later, he started to understand some of what was being said to him. "I'll never forget laying in the intensive care unit and having my wife and doctor telling me that my heart had stopped," he remembered.

He started the slow journey of recovery and prepared himself for an operation that would cauterize the offending nerve and, he and doctors hoped, would get his heart working correctly. Doctors would also implant a pacemaker and defibrillator. "I was in the hospital for 16 days," Mr. Balkey said. "I wasn't worried about running the Great Race. I was worried about how I was going to get my life back."

And doing that would take time. He started walking through the halls of the hospital with the help of his wife Ruth Anne. Once home, they continued the routine, but Mr. Balkey was afraid to go out alone on his walks. "Through Ruth Anne and my family and friends, a lot of prayers and support, I made it back."

Two months later he was on a treadmill as he successfully completed a stress test with flying colors. He was told that his heart was functioning normally and he was cleared to run again. "That afternoon, Ruth Anne and I went up on Churchill Road and I took my first running steps and it was like climbing out of a pit."

Soon he could walk and jog six miles and his old friend Dr. Steed encouraged him to try the Great Race again. This time the two would run together.

A few days before the race, Mr. Balkey signed up, not knowing what the day would bring. "The thing that was tough about that '98 race ... that was by far the hottest. It was already 80 degrees [in the morning] and it was humid."

He ran leisurely with his friend, but still Mr. Balkey struggled running in the hot sun. Once they made the turn on Morewood Avenue near the Carnegie Mellon University campus, though, they found shade and a little breeze found them. "We just took our time -- going up through Squirrel Hill I was in last place. [When ] we started jogging the downhill, I finally picked up a few people who were dealing with their own medical challenges. As we were coming down the Boulevard [of the Allies] I knew I was going to make it."

The slight downward run towards the finish line went well for him and he reached the finish line in one hour and twenty-nine minutes -- a far cry from the 33:20 he ran in a race years before.

He felt like a winner anyway.

"When I crossed the finish line, it was not that 'Hey the streak's going,' it was 'I'm going to be OK.' "

Finishing the race was the one important step toward normalcy. It enabled Mr. Balkey to realize that he would be able to move on. He felt that his friend Dr. Steed had really done him a favor by encouraging him to run the race.

Sitting recently at his dining room table, his wife standing a few feet away, Mr. Balkey tried unsuccessfully to choke back the tears as he reflected on what happened to him."

"The past nine years have been very special in a sense that having been through such an event, every day's a gift to me," he said.

"The other thing is, my being able to do this is really a gift, to continue to run and do the Great Race."

The 2007 Great Race will be run Sunday.