Waukee Breast Cancer Survivor Gets Dirty for Good Cause

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What’s better than running, jumping, climbing and getting dirty? Doing all of this with your girlfriends while donating to breast cancer.

Des Moines area women can take part in the Dirty Girl Mud Run July 20 at Sleepy Hollow Sports Park in Pleasant Hill. 

Alicia Dougherty, 35, of Waukee, will participate in the race for the first time. The tall, blonde with curly hair, was diagnosed with breast cancer at 28 years old, and has just completed treatment. She is one of 20 women on her team.

Dougherty said she got hooked up with the race with one of her friends who was diagnosed around the same time she was.

“It’s a great opportunity for a bunch of women to get together and just run and get crazy and get dirty,” Dougherty said.

The Dirty Girl Mud Run is a 5K race of teams -- only women -- where runners get muddy and surmount obstacles. Race organizers will contribute $250,000 to breast cancer research to Bright Pink.

Dougherty said her team is preparing for the run by getting matching team uniforms.

“We are getting these tank tops and bandanas to have a costume,” Dougherty said. “We are going to show up and be silly for a couple hours.”

Surviving breast cancer changed her life. Dougherty said there is no history of breast cancer in her family and she didn’t know she had the disease until she went to the doctor after noticing a change of her breasts.

“It was scary,” Dougherty said. “My cancer was stage three and the size of the tumor involvement was only stage two. Basically, we caught it just in time. I was fortunate to even find it.”

After spending years fighting it, Dougherty said she lives life to the fullest and said just because you have a bad day, doesn’t mean you have a bad life.

“Obviously, life can be a struggle and we all have bad days, but it doesn’t mean we have a bad life, we just have a bad day,” Dougherty said. “It’s hard to live that way, but if no one ever had health problems they are very fortunate but also they need to know that life is fragile and it’s just amazing to be here.”

The Dirty Girl Mud Run has 60 events across the United States. There will be a spectator village where people can cheer on the teams.