Tom Walton was a picture of health.

He was handsome, slender yet muscular, with shorts that showed strong, tan legs and a smile that rarely left his face. He was the type of guy who passed runners half his age, setting senior records and shouting from the rooftops to anyone who might want to join an ever-growing community of runners. He designed his own courses and brought 5K races to NHTI.

That’s why the shock from his friends and family ran off the charts. Walton died on Wednesday at the age of 74 after he suffered cardiac arrest 10 days earlier.

It didn’t add up. The runner and paddler and skier who combined the physical and spiritual sides of competing better than anyone, and who sometimes zoomed past runners, good runners, who were 20 years younger, was a sturdy, unshakable figure in the Concord region for decades.

Tom Walton?

With no brain function left, Walton’s family took him home from the hospital and turned off his life-support system, four days after he had collapsed near the Contoocook River. Loved ones waited for his breathing to stop.

They waited, then they waited some more. Walton’s body was so strong, he lasted for days after his lifelines had been unplugged. Anyone who knew anything about Walton realized that this was no ordinary heart. In more ways than one.

Now THAT was the Tom Walton people recalled. No quit, ever. Stubborn. And healthy. Very healthy. Healthy enough to remain when all hope was gone.

Jim Graham, a fixture in the world of road racing and cross-country skiing, called Walton, “A tenacious competitor, but the nicest guy.”

Perry Seagroves of Concord was Walton’s assistant coach for the New Hampshire Technical Institute cross-country team. He said Walton was the greatest athlete he’d ever seen, citing a competitive spirit that was miles away from his gentle nature.

Walton did it all. He coached high school hockey. He designed road race courses. He coached cross country at the Tech. In fact, Walton and Seagroves started the team in 2006. Over the next 10 years, Walton was named Yankee Small College Conference Coach of the Year seven times and lifted the Tech into a national spotlight for small schools.

“He did so much for the team that they didn’t want to let him down,” explained Seagroves. “He did everything for teams, team dinners.”

He started coordinating kayak and canoe races and raised money for road races. He combined with Northeast Delta Dental President and CEO Tom Raffio to promote running, hosting races at the Tech on courses designed by Walton.

His influence as a trainer convinced Raffio to spring for a small gym, where his employees could go during lunch.

“He was a role model who encouraged us to be better people,” Raffio said. “He believed in us when we did not.”

He was that way with coaching. He treated superstars the same way he treated struggling runners.

“It did not matter if you were slow or fast,” Raffio said.

Walton was also an administrator, and those who knew him said local road races and paddling events have increased 10-fold from just 15 years ago.

And at 74, Walton remained super-charged, greeting people, running, planning.

“I’m sure he changed people’s lives,” Graham said, “and they found out that it was way more than just running. It was a connection to community, mental health.”

Walton was a mental health sort of guy at a time when mental health guys were rare. He did yoga and he meditated. He used those practices in the locker room at Everett Arena while coaching the Concord High School boys’ hockey team in the late 1980s, ruffling parents’ feathers over a technique that they saw as too radical.

Barbara Higgins, a high school cross country coach in the area, saw it differently.

“He was always a hippie,” Higgins said. “He would use (yoga, mediation) with my cross-country teams, boys and girls, teaching them to relax.”

His cuddly side, however, never meant Walton was a softie. Not when he was paddling and running like someone far younger than himself.

As a runner, Walton was ferocious. Graham relayed a story from 30 years ago, his first encounter with Walton. They crossed paths on Iron Works Road.

Walton, who was in his mid-40s, turned around and began stalking Graham, who regularly had been clocked at 17 and 18 minutes in 5k races.

“A strong guy, big for a runner,” Graham said. “I stepped on the gas and I could not drop him. I kept looking back and seeing this muscley guy, and I was good at that time, and he was right there with me.”

He was still darn good at 74, finishing with a sub-9 minute over four miles the day before his heart gave out. He became known for finishing 5k races, then doubling back and running the race again so he could cheer on the sloths at the end who had not finished yet.

He was Tom Walton that day, really fast, really excited.

“It’s hard to picture what it will be like without him,” Higgins said.

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