Back of the Pack

With teammate Lisa Steele, at my first 5k post-cancer race

As many of you know, I recently re-entered the competitive (amateur) running scene, and with that came a return to my faithful coach, Ken Parker, and my beloved women’s running team, the Ottawa Athletic Club Racing Team (OACRT). Over the last year of recovery, I imagined returning to this team, which has boasted many of the fastest women in Ottawa. When I first started running with them, in 2009, I was almost always at the very back of the pack. I was often the last one to finish a race or workout, and I trained hard to edge my way up until by 2010, I was running mid-pack and broke 20 minutes in the 5k. 

But now, with all the setbacks that cancer brings, I find myself at the back of the pack once again. I’m not going to lie, this brings with it all sorts of difficult and conflicting emotions. On the first workout back, I was not even sure I would be able to keep up on the warm-up (I could). I told my coach that I would likely be a full minute behind everyone else on the mile repeats (I wasn’t). But I was still at the back of the pack. I was with the pack, mind you, but at the back. Again.

With my daughter
(and the cursed hat that cost me a sub-22 race)

When I came home from that workout and sighed to my husband that I was last again, he laughed. “Oh, you’re less than a year from your transplant and you’re at the back of a pack of the fastest women in Ottawa? Poor you.”

If you want sympathy, don’t cry to my husband.

It’s all about perspective. Sure, I was a little bummed to be at the back again, but I was also elated that I could keep up at all. When I ran my first 5k after cancer, in May, I was aiming to be under 25 minutes (seeing as I had not run one single kilometre in under five minutes since returning to running, that seemed like a reasonable if not optimistic goal). I shocked myself (and my family) by running 22:03. In fact, my husband missed my finish because he got to the line at 24:00 and thought something horrible must have happened to me when I didn’t show up by 30:00. Meanwhile, I was wandering around our meeting place wondering where on earth he was.

Yesterday, with a month of chasing the OAC ladies under my belt, I ran the Emilie’s Run 5k in 21:32. I was not remotely fast enough to win anything, obviously, and it was not anywhere near a personal best, but I was fifth in my age group, which to me was a shock (again). I am beginning to wonder if this is all because of my great hemoglobin levels, which, pre-cancer, were never all that good. I guess it's yet another thing I'll have to thank my donor for. (You know, that and my life. That's all.)

Some of you may have seen this article about me, so you know a lot of this story already. I find the entire thing quite hilarious, as I have never been a top athlete and could never have predicted that one day I would be on the front page of the sports section. On race day, random strangers who had seen the paper were wishing me good luck, and today on my trail run another stranger said: “Hey, are you that girl from the paper?”

En route to 21:32, a new PCPB
(post-cancer personal best)

As I count down the days to my one year bone marrow transplant anniversary (or, as I like to call it, my [re]birthday), all of these mini-victories are amazing gifts that I will never take for granted. Every day that I can run is a celebration. Yes, I am at the back of the pack. And yes, I may reach a plateau where side effects and decreased lung capacity dictate that my body simply cannot go any faster. We’ll see. But it really doesn’t matter. I’m not trying to win anything. I’m just enjoying being alive.

Although I'm pretty sure that at the race yesterday, I won the leukemia survivor category. That's a thing, right?