Boston Marathon 2011!

Welcome back to my blog!

It is hard to believe that it is more than eight months since I completed my first Boston Marathon. Yes, the first. Cancer is still far too common a disease. I am fortunate still to have good health and enough energy, so I decided to apply to Dana-Farber again for a Marathon bib for the 2011 race. As I said in my January 18, 2010, blog, I realize just how important it is to help to provide funds for innovative basic research that will take us steps along the way to reaching a world without cancer. There are many steps yet to be taken, and I want to continue to do what I can to help.

This year’s Boston Marathon will have an extra special personal thrill for me. Our daughter, Kenzie, will be jogging beside me every step of the way this time! She didn’t know that I had applied for this year, but when she found out that I had been accepted again to the Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge Team, she immediately submitted her own application. You can read more details in her blog at http://kenziesheadedforbostontoo.blogspot.com/ The first marathon either one of us did, we did together in 2005 in Chicago. Kenzie registered us, and then told me! I have done three more since then (Twin Cities in Minneapolis-St. Paul, 2008; Ottawa, 2009; and Boston, 2010). Throw in the magic of Boston, and our cooperative efforts on behalf of Dana-Farber will be another very special experience we share.

Cancer has a way of becoming very personal. Last year, one of those I honored was our neighbor, David, who was in a very challenging battle with glioblastoma. After a valiant battle that lasted a year and a half, David passed away just before Christmas. It will be with a heavy heart that I will have his photo on my singlet again this year in memory of his struggle, and with the hope and prayer that research will, sooner rather than later, find answers to combat this deadly form of cancer.

Once again, I am pleased to be participating in honor of a teenage grand-niece, Angela, now a freshman in College, and in remission for more than three years following her battle with lymphoma. As I said last year, she is an inspiration to others with her attitude and outlook, and keenly recognizes, as do we all, how fortunate she is that medical advances have helped her to reclaim her life.

Two other special family members, Dale and Norma (my wife’s cousin and his spouse), are also survivors whom I am honoring. Norma is a breast cancer survivor, and Dale is still battling but recovering from lymphoma.

These four individuals are represent many more relatives, friends, and colleagues who have been stricken. As a cancer survivor myself, I appreciate the challenges this dread disease can bring. At the same time I am very much aware of the tremendous strides that have been made over the years to understand causes and to develop treatments that eliminate continuing development of some forms of the disease. There is much yet to be done, and a great need for financial support – far beyond what the public purse chooses to afford – to discover new and better ways of combating cancer. That is why I have embarked on an 18 week training period that will culminate in 26.2 miles on the road from Hopkinton to Boston on April 18 – just a little over three months from now.

Kenzie and I have a joint web page for our fundraising this year. Our goal is to obtain at least $18,000 to support the Claudia Adams Barr Program in Innovative Basic Cancer Research. You should know that every cent raised goes directly to the support of research – no administrative or fundraising charges are deducted from what we raise. I ask you to consider supporting our efforts as we put in the miles of training. Contributions can be made on line at the ‘Team Cameron’ DFMC web site that you will find at http://www.runDFMC.org/2011/cameron Your support, no matter what the level, will take us one more step along the way towards a world without cancer. Please do what you can to help us help others. I can’t think of a better way to reach out and make it count.