Minnesota man ready to run first Twin Cities Marathon races since heart attack in 2019 race

Tyler Moon leaned on his religious faith long before Oct. 6, 2019. However, that’s the day he believes his life was saved by his faith — along with nearly a dozen nurses and doctors who happened to be running near him during the Twin Cities 10-mile race.

"When I have those moments of, ‘Wow, I’m running.’ I don’t tend to go to fear, I go to just kind of joy and excitement that I’m actually running right now and happy to be running," Tyler Moon said on Tuesday.

He’s not only running again this weekend, he’s running in three races on Twin Cities Marathon weekend. He’ll run the 5K with his wife, the 10K with his dad — both on Saturday — and the Twin Cities 10-miler with Jesse Bueno, one of the medical personnel who helped save Moon’s life in 2019.

"It’s exciting to know I’m going to be a part of it this weekend and running it," said Amy Moon, who married Tyler Moon in January of 2020, just two months after his near-death experience.

When Tyler Moon ran a virtual Twin Cities Marathon last year, she rollerbladed alongside him.

"It’s a constant line of just being conscious of what happened and being careful and taking precaution, but also not crossing that line into letting fear control our minds and being afraid of something happening," she said.

Bueno talked Tyler Moon into doing the "Looney," which is what the Twin Cities Marathon calls the three-race series they’ll run this weekend.

Bueno says he’ll never forget how he met Tyler Moon shortly after he collapsed and his heart stopped.

"At that point, I just said, ‘Guys, we need to start CPR,’ and that’s just when everyone just came in and reached out and helped out," Bueno said.

Doctors still don’t know exactly what caused Tyler Moon’s heart to stop in 2019. They’ve cleared him to run after a series of tests over two years.

"We took a lot of precaution on the front end with lots of testing at the Mayo Clinic and doing lots of different things," Tyler Moon said. "We became very confident that this was a rarity that occurred in 2019."

Just in case, he also closely monitors his heart rate on his watch during every run. He also continues to lean on his faith.

Tyler was wearing a race bib that said "JesusSaves" in 2019, the last time the Twin Cities Marathon races were run before the pandemic. This year, he plans to wear a bib that says, "RunTheRace," which is based on scripture from the Bible, specifically Hebrews 12:1-3.

"That’s the actual verse," he said. "Scripturally, to kind of run the race … run our lives and do the best we can."

Tyler, his family and one of his guardian angels will run the races the best they can this weekend.