About Me

My Goal: Run the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2019 with the Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge. Raise $17,000 (or more!) where 100% of funds raised benefit the Claudia Adams Barr Program in Innovative Basic Cancer Research. I run in honor of my friend Chris Davie who is battling brain cancer. I also run in honor for my friend RJ and his continued cancer-free life, in memory of Heather Thomson, and for other family and friends who are or have battled cancer. Together we can help Dana-Farber Cancer Institute reach the ultimate finish line: a world without cancer

Barr Program Impact Statements

Barr Program Impact Statements

Immunotherapies: New Ways to Activate the Immune System—An important area of cancer research asks why the human body's defense systems do not always attack and destroy tumors as they form. Funded by the Claudia Adams Barr Program, Glenn Dranoff, MD, discovered complex regulatory pathways in the human immune system that cancers exploit in order to escape destruction. Reversal of these effects can lead to the development of vaccines against cancer, like Provenge for prostate cancer. This research has also enabled the development of immune-activating drugs such as ipilimumab, which showed striking effects in melanoma in a trial led by Dana-Farber scientists and is now approved by the Food and Drug Administration for treatment.

Sunday, February 8, 2015

A Lot of Updates

After a busy few weeks, I realize that there's a lot to update on the blog...

First, thanks to everyone who has donated so far!! We've raised $5,521, more than 50% of our goal for the year!!  Thanks so much for your support and donation.  With a fundraiser or 2 to come, we are well on our way to reaching our goal!

Speaking of fundraisers, thanks to Flour Bakery, Fuji Kendall, Duck Tours Boston, Core Power Yoga, the New England Aquarium and Mohegan Sun for recent donations of gift cards, tickets or dinner!  More details to follow but if you're in Boston/Cambridge on March 25th, hopefully you keep the hours after work free!

Juno dropped a bunch of snow, but that didn't stop us from running.  Luckily last weekend we visited family in California and were able to run in nice warm weather, perhaps too warm!  Like past years, we ran the Huntington Beach Surf City Half Marathon on Super Bowl Sunday.  It was ~65F, sunny and an adjustment coming from snowy and cold MA.  We had a great visit and after hearing about the cold in MA for the DFMC team run, I was glad to be running in CA.  We even got to run ~20 feet with the future runner in the family.


Our travel back to MA was delayed due to last week's snow storm, which also disrupted our training this week. We ran outdoors on Thurs PM on poorly shoveled sidewalks, in the road a bit and luckily on a number of 1 way streets that didn't have lots of traffic.  This weather is certainly making normal life difficult and running even more so.


Yesterday, our DFMC team run was changed due to the huge snow piles and lack of sidewalks.  We, along with what seemed like 100s of other runners, ran back and forth on the Newton hills section of the course (miles 17-21).  Though it gets quite boring after your 2nd trip, it is relatively safe and easy as the carriage road is low traffic and provides better footing than sidewalks.  Luckily, our volunteers continue to support us and cheers us on during these runs.  One stop always has a theme and yesterday's "Beach Day" theme was a nice throw back to our trip to CA.  Team Matty are some of our biggest fans and seeing them and pictures of Matty are great reminders of why we run for those fighting cancer and in memory of those, like Matty, who have lost their fight.  Thanks Team Matty and all our supporters for all you do!

With another 14-20"+ snow coming in the next 2 days, I don't think we'll be at the beach anytime soon.  Hopefully we get some warmer weather though soon and can start to enjoy our outdoor runs a bit more!


Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)