A New Horizon

This month I was officially accepted to the Dana Farber Marathon Challenge Team for the 5th consecutive year. While this is my 5th time on the DFMC team, I anticipate it will be a markedly different experience for me.

In my past 4 years on the team I had never attended any of the runner's meetings or weekly group runs. I wish I could say I logged all the training miles on my own but the reality is I never really put too much effort into the training aspect of being on the team and focused more of my energy of fundraising. My fiancé, Dave, a Certified Strength and Conditoning Specialist with the NSCA, and Exercise Physiology PhD student, liked to say I brought lack of preparation to a whole new level. Not exactly a ringing endorsement to my training program, especially from someone so professionally qualified to judge! Inevitably I always paid the price in pain and suffering on Marathon Monday. But despite his critical reviews of my training program, or lack thereof, Dave would always scrape me off the finish line on Boylston Street and make sure I got home in one piece. Despite my less than stellar athletic performance, the week or so of walking funny it was worth it to me for the funds raised for cancer research.

My entire perspective changed on March 28, 2009. On that day, I received a call from my mother that my younger brother, my only sibling, was rushed to South Shore Hospital after collapsing in his apartment on his way to work. Prior to collapsing, he had indicated his chest felt funny. Paramedics were not able to revive him. His death was unexpected; he had not been sick. Months later, even with autopsy results in hand, doctors are not sure what happened. It was some sort of cardiac incident... arrhythmia, myocardial infarction, they won't say for sure.

With a nagging ankle injury and a broken heart, I deferred my marathon entry with the DFMC in 2009 and did not run the marathon. Honestly, through my grief I did not think I would ever elect to run again. Yet marathon Monday came round and I couldn't shake the disappointment of not waking up and heading to St. John's to prepare with the other runners, of watching the marathon online sitting at my desk at work. Yet, I still wasn't sure I'd have the heart to sign up or use my deferral. As the fall came, and with it the DFMC application process and start of the BAA registration process I started thinking about the marathon and whether I would participate.

My brother was always proud of me for running and fundraising. Our mom has Chromic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML) and I have participated in DFMC every year since her diagnosis. Because of Barr Investigator's research in genetic abnormalities in a class of proteins that control cell growth in certain cancers, there is now a drug therapy for CML, which was previously a fatal cancer. How could I turn my back on doing something so important? I decided I couldn't and that through participation and fundraising I would continue to do everything I could to make sure another family member is not taken away from me prematurely.

This year I vow my experience will be different. I attended the first runner's meeting on Wednesday October 28^th, the 7-month anniversary of my brother's death, and also his 1st birthday since his passing. I needed something to do to keep me busy that day, and couldn't have picked a better activity to honor his memory. In that 3rd floor room of the Smith Building at Dana Farber and at Boston Beer works following, I was surrounded by a group of optimists. Many of who had experienced similar life-altering losses of loved ones as I had with my brother. We are wounded, but not defeated; united in a common cause to conquer cancer. I'm looking forward to training with and getting to know my team mates better this year. The miles we log have the potential to not only strengthen our hearts physically, but I hope to help them heal as well.