At the end of last year, my friend Vanessa Shawver came up with the idea for the Inaugural 2016 Pikes Peak Road Runner's Brewer's Cup. She got 19 local breweries and distilleries to sign on as team sponsors. Each team has 15 runners. The breweries and distilleries provide a team shirt which the runners wear at all of the local Pikes Peak Road Runner events. There are post-race, weekly and monthly gatherings at the business so it is a win-win for all involved. All of the races on our…

In 2013, I was a healthy 44 year old married mother of two. I ran my first 100 mile race that summer, finishing in 22 hours and 33 minutes. I went on to run a 100K three months later. Seven weeks after that 100K race, I was in the hospital having half of my pancreas, my spleen and several lymph nodes removed. The diagnosis: Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma.

In a heartbeat, I went from being one of the healthiest people I knew to being diagnosed with a highly lethal form of cancer. Pancreatic…

There are certain moments that you will always remember in your life: your first kiss, your wedding day, the birth of your children. I can add to that otherwise happy list the moment I heard the words "Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma". November 18 is the day I had surgery one year ago for what turned out to be Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma. I went into the surgery thinking that I had a precancerous lesion. I did, but there was also cancer present. This past year has been an amazing journey.

I…

This year, on the day of the Boston Marathon, I went in for chemotherapy. On that day, I was wearing my own Boston marathon shirt in solidarity with the people who were running the race the year after the bombing at the finish line. My shirt happened to spark a conversation with another gentleman who was in for chemotherapy also. I had really not talked with any other patients up to this point, but as fate…