Fred’s Blog

As I mentioned previously, Cancer-grrl and I signed up to run in the Komen Foundation Race for the Cure (you can still make donations there! Don’t be shy!) for breast cancer research, which we did this fine morning along with some 20,000 other people.

I have never run in such a mass of people. I don’t think I have run in any mass of people, in fact, since my one-and-only junior high school track meet. It is hypnotic to gaze out and watch the sea of pony tails bobbing up and down almost in unison.

We did 5km in almost exactly 30 minutes, not bad considering she is just a week out of her last Taxol drip and fresh from a Herceptin shot. I felt a little like I was running alongside a celebrity: although there were many breast cancer “survivors” (identified by pink t-shirts) in the run, I saw very few who wore the badge of current chemotherapy treatment, the bald head.

Cancer-grrl, in fact, created a small crisis when she went to pick up her race materials. Since she’s not out of chemo yet she’s not officially a “survivor” so they weren’t sure how many survivor-year ribbons they should give her. They compromised and gave her half a ribbon.

Good day for a run. I definitely felt buoyed up by the goodwill that permeated Central Park today. As we left the Park and walked back to the car parked on Broadway the feeling began to dwindle as we mingled with regular people not wearing Komen run t-shirts, but there were still enough of us on the streets and in the restaurants having brunch to maintain the sense of positivity. Later, it diffused completely into the void.