Lindsay Hawker, who went through four surgeries and 15 months of chemo, is ready to tackle her second 26.2.
Like most runners, Lindsay Hawker has days when she’s low on motivation. When it’s tough to get out the door, she thinks back six years ago to when she started chemotherapy for breast cancer.
“I look back through my pictures and I will see myself, the selfies I took in bed, bald head, sad and depressed,” the Bradenton, Florida, resident told Runner’s World. “I’m like, you’re running for that girl. You promised her.”
Once she heads out for the first mile, she almost always wants to keep going. And on October 10, she’ll aim to continue for 25.2 more at the Chicago Marathon.
Chicago will be Hawker’s second marathon and her first World Marathon Major. Joining 35,000 other runners at the starting line is all the more meaningful in a year when she turned 40 and marked her fifth anniversary of being cancer-free. And to top it all off, her cancer doctor is running, too.
“Once I realized how short and fragile life is and that you’re not guaranteed this time, I was like, I’m gonna go for it,” she said. “There might be a time when I can’t run again—but that time is not now.”
From Treatment to Triumph
When they called with results, confirming their suspicions, Hawker wasn’t surprised—but still shaken. “I thought I knew what anxiety was, but I didn’t, until I was diagnosed,” she said. “I had a nine-month-old baby. I used to just sob and say, he might not remember me if I don’t make it through this.”
Hawker wasn’t a runner before. In fact, she’d never stuck to any exercise plan. Cancer made her rethink her priorities; if she survived, she told herself, she’d change.
Her cancer was stage 2 and hadn’t yet spread to her lymph nodes. However, it contained high levels of a protein called human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2). HER2-positive tumors tend to grow quickly, so her treatment plan was aggressive, too: six months of intense chemotherapy, a double mastectomy, then nine more months of chemotherapy. All in all, she had four surgeries and 15 months of chemo.
During the weeklong hospital stay after her double mastectomy, nurses encouraged Hawker to pace through the halls. “They said, walking is going to help you heal,” she said. “A light bulb went off. I’m thinking, if walking is great, running must be even better.”
One of her first-round chemo drugs—doxorubicin, sometimes known as “the red devil”—can damage the heart. Hawker needed an EKG and other testing to be cleared for physical activity.
As soon as she got the okay for everything but chest exercises, she downloaded the Couch to 5K app—though, as she joked with her family, she really needed the hospital bed to 5K app—and headed out. Her goal was to make it to the first mailbox down the street. She was gone so long her family was worried.
Still, she kept at it, because running made her feel alive. Then, on Sept. 24, 2016—two and half months after her mastectomy—Hawker crossed her first finish line at a local 5k. “I loved the sense of community, I loved the way it made me feel,” she said. She thought: “I’ve got to do more of this.”
A Team Effort
And she did, increasing her distances and reducing her pace, until she was running half marathons in well under two hours (she completed the Sarasota West Coast Half Marathon last December in 1:52:23).
Along the way, she stayed in close contact with her medical team. Her current oncologist—Miguel Pelayo, M.D. of Florida Cancer Specialists & Research Institute—understands her mindset. Dr. Pelayo has been a runner for about a decade, following a health scare with his father.
He and Hawker discovered their shared passion when they saw each other at the finish line of a half marathon; she’d finished about 30 minutes ahead of him. “This person I’m actively treating and watching for cancer beat me,” he said. “That left an impression on me.”
At the time, she was still receiving chemotherapy. “He’s like, what are we giving you in those IVs?” Hawker said, laughing.
Kidding aside, the alignment between Hawker’s improving health and running accomplishments didn’t surprise Dr. Pelayo. He’s noticed patients who stay active, physically and mentally, tend to fare better during treatment than those who don’t.
“My patients, they always look to me and say, ‘What is it that I can do to make sure this doesn’t happen again?’” he said. Physical activity tops the list of ways to keep the disease from returning, he tells them. Indeed, a 2020 study found that getting the equivalent of two and a half hours of moderate exercise per week improved survival and reduced recurrence in women with high-risk breast cancer.
Yet cancer and treatment do sometimes pose challenges for runners. At times, Hawker had to pause to heal from a surgery. Knowing she may have lingering effects from chemo, she keeps tabs on her heart rate. She doesn’t hesitate to slow down or stop if it spikes, or if she feels cramps in her legs or chest.
The first time she tried to train for a marathon, her joints ached. Dr. Pelayo believed it was linked to inflammation from treatments suppressing her estrogen levels. On his advice, she cut back—temporarily—and chose to run the half marathon.
Each time, Hawker ramped up again when she was able. Training made her physically stronger and emotionally resilient. She’d run, think, and cry, and when she returned, everything looked a bit brighter. Being outside in nature amplified the feeling of healing.
After another delay due to the pandemic, Hawker finally ran her first marathon, the Space Coast Marathon, in Cocoa, Florida, on November 29, 2020. As she finished, she sobbed, recognizing how far she’d come. Then, she set her sights on Chicago, and jumped for joy when she got in through the lottery.
Now—after a long summer training in Florida’s heat—she’s hoping for a cooler day to help her beat the 4:12 she ran at Space Coast, and maybe even finish under four hours.
In a serendipitous turn of events, Dr. Pelayo and his wife are running Chicago too. He felt satisfied with running half marathons, but his wife signed them both up for the lottery. “It was almost like a challenge,” he said, one he decided to step up and meet.
Seeing Hawker at the finish line—where he suspects she’ll arrive before he does—will make his first marathon even sweeter. “I meet these people during the worst time of their lives, and I get involved and learn about them,” he said. Seeing patients through to better days reinforces why his work matters.
Hawker, meanwhile, proactively shares her journey on social media and her website, Running Past Cancer. There, she reminds people to prioritize their health and tap into the power of perseverance. She’s inspired many others to movement, including her 10-year-old son Jett, a soccer player who recently joined her for a four-miler and has his sights set on a half marathon someday.
Her own motivation to keep running comes from Jett and his brother, Cash—she wants to be around to take care of them. And if she hits a rough patch in the race, she knows she has a deep well of strength to draw from.
“I did chemo and cancer,” she said. “Running is hard, but cancer is harder, hands down. I know that if I did that, I can basically do anything.”
Fonte: Runner´s World
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