Running through, not from, cancer

My first experience with pancreatic cancer came when my amazingly healthy Uncle Harvey got it about five years ago. He chose to let it take him as quickly as possible, declining all attempts to prolong his life. That was when I learned how swiftly this unrelenting and incurable disease can terminate a life.

I have since had the pleasure of meeting two runners from the Twin Ports who have both survived way beyond their prognosis with the aid of running.

Kevin Peterson, born and raised in Superior, Wisconsin, is an elite master's runner, 18-year Grandma's Marathon board member and former mayoral candidate. Peterson continued to run after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and his tumor has shrunk by 50 percent.

Twin Cities native Anne Burton Blakely, mother of a 9-year-old and a 27-year-old, is a hospice nurse who also enjoys walking, running, biking and swimming. She completely rid herself of the cancer for over a year and even ran the Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota, where she lives - her first attempt at that distance - in June.

Read Eve's Stein's entire story about Kevin Peterson and Anne Burton Blakely in the October 2012 print edition of Silent Sports. Don't miss an issue. Subscribe online here.