Running Your Own Race

Watching my eighth-grader run the anchor leg of a relay race transformed into an unexpected mirror of my breast cancer journey. Despite being a full lap behind when he received the baton, my son never quit—he ran his heart out with no hope of winning. This powerful moment crystallized what life after cancer truly means.

When treatment ends, many survivors feel perpetually "a lap behind" as we witness how the world continued spinning while our lives were on pause. Careers advanced, relationships shifted, and we emerged into a reality that suddenly feels disorienting. Yet within this challenging transition lies profound wisdom.

Running your own race becomes essential after cancer. The pressure to "catch up" or return to your pre-diagnosis life can be overwhelming, but healing follows a deeply personal timeline. I've learned to release comparisons and embrace my new pace, finding strength in simply moving forward. Cancer forged resilience I never knew existed—a hard-earned gift amid the struggle that became my foundation for navigating life afterward.

Perhaps most transformative was redefining victory itself. Before cancer, I measured success by external achievements, constantly trying to "lap everyone around the track." Now, winning means being fully present for each moment—a practice my yoga teacher calls "being where your feet are." Whether I'm training for Kilimanjaro, watching my son compete, or sharing dinner with family, true success is showing up completely.

The next time cancer makes you feel impossibly behind, remember those anchor leg runners. The goal isn't crossing the finish line first—it's finding the courage to keep moving forward at whatever pace works for you. Your unique journey isn't a competition with others but a profound opportunity to discover what truly matters.

Chapters

• 1:00 Introducing the Track Meet Experience
• 2:21 The Race and Being Lapped
• 4:07 Running Your Own Race
• 6:30 Discovering Unexpected Resilience
• 7:48 Redefining What Winning Looks Like
• 9:11 Being Present Where Your Feet Are

Transcript

Speaker 0: 0:30

All of my mom friends call me Maycember because there's just like a bazillion things going on Sports, music, field trips, activities, all the things and my eighth grader is running track for the first time. He is a mountain biker and a cross-country skier those are the two teams he is on, and so running track for him is a new sport. This year he's running the half mile and the mile, and I had an experience watching him in a track meet a few weeks ago that I just wanted to talk about briefly today because in many ways, watching him run this race reminded me so much of life after cancer. So if you're here, welcome to the show. This is the place where we talk about life after cancer. A huge shout out to Kathy, who sent me an email sharing her cancer journey and cancer experience, and that was really beautiful and powerful to read. So thank you, kathy. Rebecca at hikelikeawomancom Hike Like a Woman is the place where I talk about hiking and adventure, travel and leading big group trips all over the world to epic places like the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro and the tropics of Costa Rica. So if you would like to join me for a trip this has nothing to do with breast cancer, but you can find me at Hike Like a Woman.

Speaker 0: 1:51

Okay, so let's get back to this track meet. So with this track meet, my child is part of a relay medley and this particular medley the first leg of the race ran 100 meters. The second leg of the race ran 200 meters. Third leg ran 400 meters and he was the anchor leg. The fourth leg running 800 meters. I might have gotten those distances wrong, but I know for sure he was running 800 meters as the anchor leg. So the race starts, the starting gun goes off and the racers take off as fast as they can and my son's team is looking pretty good. The first leg. Second leg comes around. They're starting to get to the middle of the pack. Third leg goes around and it was not looking good for my kid's relay team the time the baton was passed to him as the fourth and final leg, they had been lapped. So my child grabs the baton. He has two laps to go around the track and he just runs his heart out. He just goes for it. He's a full lap behind. There's no way his team can win or even place well enough to earn points for his school. But he just kept running. He wasn't looking around the track trying to see where everybody else was, he just kept running. He didn't give up, he didn't quit, he just put one foot in front of the other with every ounce of effort that he could.

Speaker 0: 3:28

Watching him run that race that day brought up a lot of really intense feelings for me as it relates to life after breast cancer treatment. Coming out of that intense period of life can feel a lot like a runner starting your last leg of the relay, knowing that you're so far behind. It feels like the world has kept spinning. Careers have progressed, friendships have changed and you come out of treatment and you suddenly just feel really far behind. So here's three thoughts that I have about breast cancer treatment and watching my son run track. The first thing is having the courage to run your own race. In the hiking world we talk about hike your own hike a lot, and that's the same concept running your own race. It's like my son starting that leg of his race, knowing that there's no possible way that he can win.

Speaker 0: 4:25

Navigating life after breast cancer requires a certain amount of courage and a little bit of grit to keep on going. It's hard to move forward with your life and with your health when it feels like you're miles behind. Treatment puts life on hold in so many ways and because of that it creates this real sense of lost time, especially when it comes to careers, relationships and even personal goals. And it's okay to acknowledge the feeling of being a lap behind when you come out of treatment. It's real. But recovery, healing and finding your new path is a very personal experience. It's not a race against anyone else. We don't need to look to our right and look to our left and see what everybody else is doing. This is a time where actually, we can be a little bit selfish and think about what we're doing to make ourselves feel better. What really matters is progress is moving forward, no matter how small and insignificant our steps seem, and for me, it was a lot about trying to release the pressure of where I was before treatment and where I was after treatment. I thought I would finish treatment and come out of treatment healthy and strong just like I was going into treatment, and that wasn't the case. My path after treatment was different because my body was different.

Speaker 0: 5:51

The second thing I took away from watching my son that day was the unforeseen strength and resilience that he showed. Honestly, in that moment I saw the big gap between him and the winner of the race and I felt a little bit defeated for him. But he dug deep and he just kept on running, and I think that's so true. For those of us who have faced breast cancer. We discover an inner resilience that we never knew existed. The experience of diagnosis, treatment, recovery and the physical and emotional toll of it it forges a unique kind of strength. It's hard earned. So while the challenges of breast cancer are undeniably difficult, they can also be a catalyst for profound personal growth and a deeper appreciation for life. This newfound growth is a really powerful tool for navigating life after cancer, especially as we all try to find a meaningful new normal for us. Finally, from this track meet, I really redefined what winning looks like In that relay. The traditional concept of winning and crossing the finish line first was completely out of grasp for my son's relay team, but all of the kids on that team showed incredible effort and none of them quit.

Speaker 0: 7:18

So is not quitting the victory. I struggle with this a little bit because there's certainly things that I quit during my treatment. I quit the chemo drug Taxol because it was causing me incredible pain and severe neuropathy. So I quit chemo early. I quit taking my aromatase inhibitors because they were making me feel like I was 100 years old. So there's certain things that I quit during cancer treatment. But I think we all won, because we all stood on the starting line completely unprepared for the cancer experience ahead of us, and we all gave it our best shot. We all kept running when we were tired, we all kept going. But maybe we can win at life after breast cancer too.

Speaker 0: 8:06

Maybe it's not about immediately being able to snap back into who we were before. Maybe it's not about achieving everything that we feel like we missed. Maybe it's about setting a new pace. Maybe it's about redefining our goals. Maybe it's about analyzing our values and figuring out what it is that we hold close to our hearts. Maybe it's about celebrating the ability to participate in life again in whatever capacity really feels genuine and authentic to us.

Speaker 0: 8:38

For me, it's been about embracing the present. There's a mantra that a yoga teacher told me recently, and that mantra is just to be where your feet are. If my feet are out on the trail training for Kilimanjaro, then I need to be out on the trail training for Kilimanjaro. Then I need to be out on the trail training for Kilimanjaro in my mind. And if my feet are watching my son at a track meet, then I need to be watching my son at a track meet. If I am working here on something for Hike Like a Woman, then my feet need to be working on something for Hike Like a Woman. If I am eating dinner with my family, then I want to be with my family.

Speaker 0: 9:24

I don't think that I was very good at being present and being in the moment before cancer because I was too busy trying to lap everybody around the track. I was too busy trying to prove that I was successful. I was busy trying to be everything to everyone and, as a result, I wasn't anything to anyone, including myself and including my family. I think for lots of us after cancer, winning looks different, and that is absolutely okay. The next time it feels like the world has moved on without you, remember the runners on the anchor leg of a relay. Remember that, even when the odds seem impossible, the goal isn't to win. The goal is just to keep on going at whatever pace is comfortable for you. Thanks for hanging out with me today and if you want to find out what I do at Hike Like A Woman. Go check it out at hikelikeawomancom and I will see you next week.