Relentless Resilience in a Difference-Making Year!
See if you can relate to this as a runner now: Carrie didn’t consider herself athletic growing up. She didn’t play sports; she liked the feeling of working out but just wasn’t that involved in it.
But through a series of life challenges, Carrie decided to take up running to see what was possible. She found running challenging and different and motivating. She went from treadmill classes to training outside for her very first half – which happened to be our Surf City half. Once she crossed the finish line of her first half, she realized she “did something major” and wanted to do more.
She didn’t have a big running community yet but kept signing up for local races, meeting more friends through that and eventually through joining Los Angeles Road Runners (LARR) where she met a friend who had a goal to run a full marathon before their 40th birthday. Carrie decided to tackle a similar goal and did the NYC Marathon while raising money for Fred’s Team to benefit Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center where both her parents have been treated for cancer.
Carrie loves the sense of camaraderie of running with a local club and working together to motivate for and train for big races. “I like how I feel, I love how accomplished I feel!” And running in SoCal? “So many great places to run, beautiful trails, running paths, living by the beach – endless races to sign up for.”
“The more you’re out running, the more you see people, the more friends you make, the more involved in the community you are.”
Carrie has run the NYC marathon multiple times, and it’s always incredibly meaningful to her because of being able to raise research funds through ‘Fred’s Team’. New York was her first World Marathon Major Star followed by #2 Chicago Marathon and #3 Boston Marathon. She got herself a coach and ran track and found new ways to unlock what else was possible for her which helped her start to take on multiple World Marathon Majors more fully and feel strong through the experience. She found herself always thinking about running, even when she couldn’t run that much. And that includes staying motived by volunteering at water stations so event when she can’t run, she can be a part of the community. We love a runner who volunteers!
Carrie gave birth to her son in 2021 so she wanted to run NY again and used LARR to motivate herself and feel that inspiration of the running crew. She kept getting after it and ran #4 Tokyo Marathon and #5 London Marathon in 2023 after giving birth to her daughter. She was supposed to run Berlin in the Fall of 2023, but a routine health exam led to a mammogram recommendation and Carrie was in shock – she felt fine, healthy and was in peak shape and super fit. She’d just ran two marathons; how could this be?
She started chemotherapy in June of 2023 through October – and had to defer her 2023 Berlin 6th Star to 2024. Carrie kept running for a few months during chemo, even running the Surf City 10k in September 2023, but it was hard and all the aggressive treatment took its toll. And by November she just needed to rest, her body asking her to take care.
Keeping active was critical for Carrie during all her treatment – even just 15 minutes of activity felt like she’d accomplished something. The ‘good news’ about Carrie’s cancer, as she tells it, is while her breast cancer was growing out of control, in her case the quicker it grows, the better it responds to chemo because chemo kills anything that is growing. Between chemo, radiation, a full mastectomy, and immunotherapy, Carrie finished all of that in 2024 and her doctors feel confident because of that full course, she has a 90% chance to stay healthy and running.
It is a tough road Carrie’s been on – she was managing two kids under the age of two and was on the couch most days. But just as quickly as she went downhill, she was able to reset and grow again. She’s been biking and running to build endurance for Berlin for the last four months. Her belief is that if you start from a healthy place, it’s much easier to bounce back.
And her love of the Golden State Challenge knows no bounds and runs right through Huntington Beach. She’s run Surf City in February every year, it’s her staple race, she absolutely loves it. She decided to do the Golden State Challenge this year because there are so many beautiful places to run, and we live in such a unique place to be able to choose from Northern and Southern California courses – wine country, ocean and city courses. So, she started with Surf City in February, through to Sonoma in July, she’ll run the Surf City 10 miler, Long Beach virtually and join in Malibu after claiming that elusive 6th World Marathon Major Star.
First it was nursing school, then the pandemic and having kids, then breast cancer – it’s taken 14 years for Carrie to get this 6th Star and we are so honored to be a part of her journey through Golden State Challenge. She’s collected many running friends in the running community which has served as a huge source of support for her to remind her just how much she’s already done and maybe occasionally be the voice of reason too.
And would you believe, Carrie has more goals! She knows running will always be a part of her life – sometimes it’s a grind, some days she feels so healthy and great but “part of the challenge is, life is not always easy all the time and running is not always easy all the time. Being able to face the adversity and keep going…having a bad run, it mimics life you keep pushing and it teaches you about yourself.”
We are cheering you on Carrie!
