Exclusive: How Bill Hayes, Peter Bergman Inspired Greg Rikaart’s NY Marathon Run
From the moment Greg Rikaart (Leo, Days of our Lives; Kevin, Young and Restless) decided to tackle the New York Marathon, he knew it was going to be a massive undertaking. Fortunately, he didn’t lack support along to way. In addition to his husband, Rob Suddoth, their son, Monte, and other family members, Rikaart also had Y&R co-star Peter Bergman (Jack) cheering him on.
Support System
Rikaart is not an experienced marathon runner, but the race has long been on his radar. “I grew up in New York. I remember being a kid and watching it on TV,” he says. “I’d see all the elite runners, but then I learned that my uncle ran the marathon a few times, and he was not an elite runner. So I knew that marathons are something that, with the right amount of training, a regular person can pursue. That was something that motivated me.”
On the eve of the marathon, he discovered that Bergman was also in New York for the race. “The morning before I started running, I got a text from Peter Bergman telling me that he heard I was running, his niece was running, and that there was an app, a marathon app,” shares Rikaart. “He was like, ‘I’ll track you, and hopefully we can see you at some point.’ ”
Bergman actually did get to see Rikaart, and it was at a point in the race when he really needed it. “I had Rob and Monte at mile eight, Rob and Monte and my cousins at mile 18, and I knew that the rest of my family was all waiting at the finish line, so I really never hit a wall,” recalls Rikaart. “But around mile 24, 25, I was really like, ‘Oh. This is hard.’ And I still had another mile plus to go. The whole crowd in New York is just spectacular. Thousands of people are spectating and cheering people on. And because I had my name on my shirt, everyone was yelling, ‘Go Greg! Go Greg!’ The whole time I heard that, and it was definitely motivating. But around mile 24, 25, I was having a hard time, and I heard, ‘Greg, Greg.’ I kept running, and then I heard, ‘Greg Rikaart.’ I turned and I looked, and it was Peter Bergman and [his wife] Mariellen. I ran over to them and was like, ‘I’m so happy to see you guys! Peter was like, ‘Go! Go!’ It was exactly the shot in the arm that I needed for that final push. So it was great to see them.”
Rikaart ultimately completed the race in four-and-a-half hours. “I’d never run a marathon before, so I wasn’t really going for a fast time,” explains Rikaart. “And every time I saw Rob and Monte, I would stop for a minute and say hi to them. So my pace was a little above 10 minutes a mile.”
Rikaart was also motivated by the late “Bill Hayes’s (ex-Doug, DAYS) celebration of life,” he notes. “We were all at this ceremony learning about and listening to all the wonderful things that he’d accomplished in his life. I know a lot of us there were thinking to ourselves, ‘What am I doing with my life?’ I certainly left prepared and feeling like I needed to take some bigger swings. I committed to it, I took my training really seriously. That was really fun, because before this experience I don’t think I’d ever run more than three or four miles in a stretch. Then suddenly I was running five miles and then 10 and then 15, before ultimately getting up to a 20-mile run.”
All of which led to taking part in and completing this year’s New York Marathon. “My sister and her family, Rob, and Monte were all at the finish line,” says Rikaart, who recalls feeling “this combination of physically exhausted, but mentally on such a high. It was pretty great. And starting on Staten Island, which was my hometown, was really special. It was really such a great experience. I’m so glad that I did it.”
Conversation
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