Karen Baas just wanted a way to feel like she was flushing out the chemicals. Then she got hooked.
—in part to keep the chemicals flushing from her system, as she described it, and to inspire her two children, but also to see the look on her doctor’s face.“I think every runner knows that feeling of wondering how much further you can go, how much your body can really do,” she says. “For me, I was coming back basically from zero, and to be able to run was empowering. Difficult, humbling, and almost impossible on some days. But empowering.
That was nine years ago, and since then, Baas has just kept increasing her distance and moving her finish line further ahead. She remembers being unable to run a mile without walking at first, and the fatigue was so overwhelming, she called every attempt a “hellish adventure.” But she kept going back out, nearly every day. She finally ran that mile without stopping, then the next and the next. Baas focused on training and gradual improvement, and it paid off. By three years after her last chemo, she’d completed 10 marathons., especially because I have the Pacific Crest Trail right here, with the mountains in the background,” she says. “When I heard about ultras, I knew I had to do it.
Although she’s long past the days of trying to get the chemicals from her system, some of the original reasons for running are still firmly fixed in her mind, Baas says. She does it for her kids, to show them that pushing their boundaries is actually a good thing, and she does it for herself, joking that her husband says she’s “not the same” on days she skips running—a rare occurrence, considering she now logs about 70 miles a week.
Baas also runs so that other cancer patients and survivors can see that there’s life beyond that chemo infusion chair.Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
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