Gabe Grunewald on Running and Cancer Treatment: “I’m Not Throwing in the Towel”

As a challenging year comes to a close, the national champion is targeting new competitive goals in 2018.

By Erin Strout

During the past year, Gabriele Grunewald, 31, has tried to maintain her presence as a professional middle-distance runner while pursuing all available avenues to treat her fourth bout of cancer. It’s been a year of extensive travel, a lot of airports, and many hours in doctors’ offices.

All the while, Grunewald has openly shared her story about her life with adenoid cystic carcinoma, first diagnosed in 2009, when she was an NCAA standout at the University of Minnesota. Her latest recurrence came in March, seven months after she had a large tumor removed from her liver. More small tumors returned to her liver, which did not respond to chemotherapy and have not stabilized this fall during an immunotherapy clinical trial.

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