Marathon for Carol Ann
Thursday, September 1, 2011
By: Larissa True

This event is very dear to my heart, and I am thrilled to have the opportunity to honor the memory of my aunt Carol Ann Elliott through the Susan G. Komen Marathon for the Cure (which I have personally renamed Marathon for Carol Ann). I want to share my family's story and create awareness for a disease that affects millions of people worldwide every year.

My aunt was diagnosed with breast cancer in the fall of 2004. Over the course of about a year, she fought her battle with chemotherapy, a radical mastectomy, and radiation. She fought privately and continued to live her life as if she was not suffering, and enjoyed spending time with her new granddaughter. She was a vibrant person, optimistic, and carefree. She brought life to any room she entered. I remember her most for appropriately nicknaming me "The Brat" (and using the nickname often), and for subtly encouraging my mom and I to approach life with a more happy-go-lucky approach. She had the ability to make others feel more relaxed without even meaning to. In short, she was truly an amazing person. She lost her battle on September 8, 2005, at the age of 61.

About 8 months after my aunt passed away, I received a flyer in the mail announcing the 2006 Race for the Cure 5K in Lubbock, Texas. I was so inspired by the flyer; I immediately went out and ran 3 miles for the first time in my life. I will never forget that run. It took 30 minutes, and I swore I was dying when it was over, but I immediately called my mom and told her that we were going to start training for the Race...and so began my running "career." We both trained--me running and my mom walking--and got ready for the Race on September 31, 2006. I broke my personal record for the 5K, finishing at 22:01, and my mom also broke her PR. When my mom crossed the finish line, we were incredibly overcome with emotion. We hugged and cried and remembered all the wonderful things about my aunt that we missed terribly. We also began a new tradition, and have participated in the Race for the Cure together every year since that first race.

I never gave up running, and as a result of all the running I was doing, I also became interested in health, fitness, and exercise science, which helped to guide my career path as a future professor of Kinesiology. I attribute my love for running to my aunt and to that first Race for the Cure--and every race I've ran since that first one has always been in memory of Carol Ann. I have been on many runs where I have wanted to stop, slow down, or completely rethink this whole obsession with running, but using my aunt's legacy as inspiration has kept one foot in front of the other for a countless number of miles over the past 5 years.

In April of this year, my mom visited me in East Lansing, Michigan (where I live now), and we walked the Greater Lansing Race for the Cure together. The night before the race, I was looking at the Komen website for some information about the race, and came across the "Marathon for the Cure" page. I told my mom there was one in Chicago and one in San Antonio in the fall, which would give me enough time to train, and my mom pointed out that if I did the one in San Antonio, I'd probably have a lot more fans there! The next week I sent her an email asking her to come watch me run on November 13. And here we are now. The San Antonio race is perfect because most of Carol Ann's immediately family lives in the area, and we can all experience the Marathon for the Cure together.

Carol Ann was taken from this world too soon, and unfortunately, so are so many other women. In the U.S., every three minutes a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer, and every 13 minutes a woman dies from breast cancer. My mom and I now have a long list of people we walk for every year--fortunately, the "in honor of" list is much longer than the "in memory of" list--but there is no denying that breast cancer touches the lives of millions of people every year. Our survivor list includes everyone from a 30-year-old fellow PhD student to my 92-year-old grandmother, who is a 16-year survivor. One reason I love Susan G. Komen for the Cure is because of the way it has changed the way the world looks at breast cancer and has created awareness for early detection.

Over the past 6 years, I have been so inspired by Susan G. Komen for the Cure and hearing stories from others whose lives have been affected by breast cancer. I'm now excited to share my family's story and give back to the foundation that has helped fight breast cancer through research, education, and community outreach for many years.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! Don't stop until we find a cure.