For This Bethesda Athlete, It’s More Than a Race

From the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society:

BETHESDA, MD, – Lara Snead has always been a runner. A competitor since high school, Lara gradually quickened her pace and increased her stamina to the half-marathon distance. Last June, with a winning bib number from the lottery happily in hand, she set her sights on her first Marine Corps Marathon. But during her early training, her body sent her a signal. Chest pain and fatigue would be the first signs of a cancerous tumor growing around her sternum, and an enlarged lymph node near her collar bone confirmed it was Hodgkin lymphoma. Her first marathon would have to wait.

“It was completely shocking,” Lara said. “And I think it was the fear of the unknown that was the hardest on me.”

As a single woman living across the country from her family, facing this diagnosis alone was frightening. Almost immediately, her father flew in from Seattle and stayed to help her through that first month of treatment. Her doctors at Sibley Memorial Hospital told her to expect about six months of chemotherapy – an exhausting regimen of 12 hospital infusions every other week – which would gradually kill the cancerous cells.

“I didn’t know how my body would respond to this harsh medicine,” Lara said, “but I tried to look on the bright side every day. I was thankful we had caught it early, and I convinced myself that I would be okay. The nurses at Sibley would smile and call me a rock star for the way I handled it.”

“I was so lucky to have family and friends to go to treatment with; they made it bearable. They gave me something to look forward to. The only thing I missed was exercise. I couldn’t run to relieve stress, at a time when I was at the peak of stress in my life,” she said.

A year later, Lara is again holding a bib number for the Marine Corps Marathon. She began running again in January after deciding against radiation treatment. Her energy returned, slowly. At first, she could run a few hundred yards and, days later, a mile. In April she ran the Cherry Blossom 10-miler, less than four months after chemotherapy.

“I call this my redemption run,” Lara says of her plan to run the Marine Corps Marathon Oct. 9th. “I decided to run with Team In Training because I wanted to help The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society raise money for cancer research, and help future patients like me. I needed to get back out there, and being associated with LLS makes this race that much more meaningful to me.”

“Training has been going great. Last Saturday my teammates and I ran 18 miles,” Lara said. “That’s the longest I’ve ever run! The best part is the team aspect. Being out there with a group of people, and talking about all of our everyday cares, makes it so much more enjoyable. I like being around people who enjoy running. These are my people,” she said.

There will be 40 runners on Lara’s team at the Marine Corps Marathon start line; together they have raised $40,000 for LLS’ cancer research and patient services. Millions are raised each year by LLS’s Team In Training runners, cyclists and triathletes, turning ‘someday’ into ‘today’ for patients like Lara Snead.

Team In Training (TNT) is the flagship fundraising campaign of LLS and the world’s largest and most successful charity sports endurance training program. Since its inception in 1988, when a team of 38 runners trained together for the New York City Marathon and raised $320,000, TNT has raised more than $1.4 billion, trained more than 600,000 people and helped LLS invest more than $1 billion in research to advance breakthrough cancer treatments that are saving lives today. To join the team, call 800-482-TEAM or visit www.teamintraining.org.

Image via the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.