Runner's World

I'm just now seeing it, but Runner's World magazine did a special issue on Running and Cancer in July. The links to the articles are online, here.

I stopped subscribing to RW a couple of years ago. Not because they rejected the piece I sent in about running and cancer soon after I was diagnosed.  (It was good, too. Real heart-strings type stuff, like this:

These days, when my oldest gets out of bed by six a.m., he does his best to be quiet. But even from the basement, over the whoosh and pounding of the treadmill, I can usually hear his footsteps, walking over to the computer in the room above my head.



A few days after my diagnosis, I overheard him comforting his younger brother. “Dad’s fine. Really. I hear him on the treadmill in the morning. He’s still running.” That seemed to comfort both of them.


I think about that now as I go to the treadmill in the early mornings.


My bad racing habit has always been that I get too excited and start too fast, and have no kick at the end. So my mantra during races has always been “Run your own race -- Don’t run somebody else’s race,” a reminder to slow down early.


In some ways, we always run for ourselves. But sometimes, we run for others, too.)


No, I stopped subscribing because the articles were getting a little repetitive, and it seemed like every other month their main profile piece was about a runner who was just not that nice a person, and who I really didn't care to read about.

But the July issue is great, highlighting lots of the good that runners do in raising money for cancer-related causes (including the awesome Team in Training, which raises money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society -- read the Runner's World article here).

The RW issue also highlights runners who have battled cancer -- both famous and unknown (though, again, they missed their chance to highlight me) -- by issuing eight different covers with photos of survivors.

Of course, the really important part of all of this is that I'm feeling somewhat revitalized in my running, which is what had me browsing the Runner's World site again in the first place. I'm looking forward to my Saturday runs, and planning to increase my mileage. Having so many friends run in yesterday's New Haven Road Race provided a little inspiration, too, I will admit.

Like a lot of the folks profiled in the RW issue, running is important to me as a way of keeping reasonably healthy, but also as a way of staying inspired.