Running, Stumbling and Finding the Way through Cancer

I think being an athlete is what saved my life.

BY Kate Beland

PUBLISHED May 04, 2018

Kate Beland does not believe that cancer defines her. She is an athlete, a marathoner, a mother, a wife and a writer. When she is not conducting her three-ring circus act, she is busy kicking late stage melanoma's butt and keeping herself sane through her writing and running: https://www.facebook.com/runningandcancer/ or www.runliftbreathe.blogspot.com

It's a little early in the season to be running in the woods here in New Hampshire, after what has been a snowy March and a very rainy/sleety April. I know it's going to be muddy, and it was not that long ago that there was significant snow still on the ground, despite the warmer temperatures now. There quite possibly may be some difficult parts to cross where the woods and the seacoast intertwine, but it is well worth the wet feet; it is my happy place. I love the physical awareness it takes to run through these paths – the way you need to take note of your surroundings, and sometimes, slow down and look around to make sure you are heading in the right direction or not going to sink yourself in a pool of mud.

I think being an athlete is what saved my life. You see, there is a certain awareness we have with our bodies when we have spent a lifetime in sport. Sometimes, we are probably too in tune and can have moments of behaving like a hypochondriac. In my case, as I began the progress of running down that windy road of a cancer diagnosis, each doctor was taken by surprise. Not one of my doctors or surgeons was expecting a 40-year-old fit woman who had literally just ran the Boston Marathon to be diagnosed with such an advanced-staged cancer.

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