Amazing racer

Running Hall of Fame to honor cancer survivor's quest

The finish line was in sight, a massive arch of pink balloons floating half a mile ahead, and, as usual, most of the other breast-cancer survivors were in Judy Pickett's wake. Then, suddenly, Pickett stopped running and started crying. Nine races into a quest that at one time seemed impossible, Pickett hit an emotional wall near the end of the Susan G. Komen Race For the Cure in Washington, D.C., four years ago. Days earlier the Northern California teacher, aerobics instructor and super-mom had learned that her cancer had returned, and suddenly her dream of completing 100 five-kilometer races to benefit breast cancer awareness felt like a trivial pursuit.

"I stood there and had myself a little pity party," Pickett recalls. "I was thinking, 'Why am I even doing this? I might not even be here in a year.' Tears were streaming down my face, and I was totally unable to move."

Eventually, Pickett felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up to see a male runner she'd never met. "You can do it," the man urged. "The finish line's right there."

Snapped back to reality, Pickett carried on and managed to finish fifth in the survivor division -- and she has been pushing ahead at a relentless pace ever since. In the ensuing four years Pickett, 39, has plowed through surgery to remove her ovaries, chemotherapy to treat yet another cancerous recurrence and numerous aches and pains of the conventional variety to become a truly inspirational athletic champion.

Pickett has now completed 85 races, winning the survivor division in 65 of them, and on Saturday she'll be honored by the National Distance Running Hall of Fame. As this year's winner of the Komen Foundation's Suzy Komen Award, which recognizes a survivor's commitment to the fight against breast cancer through the sport of distance running, Pickett will be part of an induction ceremony in Utica, N.Y., that includes legends Jim Ryun and Mary Decker Slaney.

Then, on Sunday, despite a severe case of Achilles tendinitis, Pickett will participate in the famed Boilermaker road race, with her mother, husband and their three sons cheering her on.

"It's crazy," says Pickett's husband, Tod, "but it's like I'm married to Forrest Gump. I'm telling you, the parallels are uncanny. She runs across the country, has met the president and other luminaries, and even spoke in front of 50,000 people at the Washington Monument -- though they didn't unplug her microphone. And, of course, stuff happens: in her case, cancer."

Ah, yes, the dreaded C-word. Since first being diagnosed with breast cancer in February of 1997, Pickett has been a living testament to the power of positive thinking. She has lost close friends to the disease and suffered her own setbacks, all while caring for sons Kyle (13), Ryan (11) and Zachary (7). Thanks to a recently sanctioned drug called Taxotere, she has been cancer-free for 19 months and is hoping for the best. "I don't even care what the doctors say about my prognosis," Pickett says defiantly. "I'm just living for today."

As if to underscore that point, she recently had braces removed, joking to her husband, "If I die, at least when my casket's open, I'll have straight teeth."

Pickett has already established a legacy that has touched people across the country. She has run with the Olympic torch, spoken to survivor's groups and sponsors, and carried on with grace and fortitude. Thanks to initial chemo treatments that lasted eight months, Pickett was bald and nauseous during her first few races in 1997. She has since shrugged off various lesser discomforts, such as a broken toe, to continue her drive for 100, a milestone she hopes to reach next May at the Komen Race For the Cure in Sacramento, a half-hour from her home in Cameron Park, Calif.

"It's the day before Mother's Day," Pickett says, "and it will be great to do it with my whole family watching."

When Pickett refers to her "whole family," think "city block." The 12th of 14 athletically inclined kids, Judy Mosbacher became a runner in the sixth grade when she realized that she could beat the school bus home by racing three miles through rural fields. Some of her siblings were stunned the first time they got off the bus and found Judy waiting for them at the front door of their home in Placerville, Calif., a lovely little town in the Sierra foothills a few miles from where gold was first discovered.

That happens to be the area where my in-laws live -- my wife, Leslie, and Judy were childhood friends and running mates -- and if you're ever anywhere near there in mid-June, I strongly urge you to head to the El Dorado County Fair and check out the John M. Studebaker Wheelbarrow Races. You'll see contestants filling small wheelbarrows with burlap sacks of sand and navigating their way through a zany, quarter-mile obstacle course, and no one has ever done it better than Jammin' Judy, a seven-time winner in the women's division. Four years ago, when Pickett returned from a cancer-induced absence and, a few weeks before the surgery to remove her ovaries, brought bedlam to the rickety bleachers by winning the race, it was one of the most poignant sports moments I've ever witnessed.

Not all of Pickett's breast-cancer races have been so stirring. "My analogy would be that it's like a baseball season," Tod Pickett says. "At first it was really exciting, and then came the dog days, where you thought, 'Oh my gosh, is this ever going to end? Will we ever finish?' Now that it's getting close to the end, the excitement is starting to build, but that middle stretch was tough."

Then again, as both Picketts point out, there have been some nice perks from start to finish. Among other thrills, Judy has dined at vice president Dick Cheney's house, trotted a racehorse around Churchill Downs and jogged with Oprah Winfrey in Milwaukee.

The best pick-me-up came three years ago, just after Pickett had completed the Race For the Cure in Atlanta. There she spoke to a group of employees for Boise Office Solutions, the company for which her husband works as a sales associate and that has sponsored Judy for the past five years. She told the employees, "You guys are all sweaty right now, but please go home and do a self-breast exam."

Shortly thereafter, a 33-year-old woman who had heard Pickett speak contacted her via her Web site, pinkribbonrunning.org, with an e-mail that read, "I just want to thank you for coming and doing what you did because it saved my life." The woman explained that she had gone home after Pickett's speech and discovered a lump. Tod read the e-mail first, printed it out and wrote a message to Judy -- "This is why you do what you do. I love you ..." -- and left it for her on the kitchen table.

And yes, you're damn right, it made her cry.

"That letter came at the right time," Tod says. "We were at a low point, and it really hit the spot."

Two years ago, at the Komen Race in D.C., Pickett was one of the post-race speakers heard by the massive throng in front of the Washington Monument. Last month, at this year's D.C. race, Pickett carved out another memory. Running in the pouring rain, she finished the 5K in a course-record 18:48 -- first among survivors and among all women in the 35-39 age group.

By next June's D.C. event, if all goes well, Pickett will have eclipsed the magical 100-race milestone. She knows of just one runner, a male breast-cancer survivor named Mark Goldstein, who has surpassed that total. "He's run 122 of them," she says, "and he runs with a cup of coffee in his hand. You know what, though? He's 70, so I'll outlive him." Pickett laughed, then corrected herself. "Well, I don't know know if I'll outlive him. But I can outrun him."

In other words, 100 is just a three-digit number. "That was the original goal," Pickett says, "but once I reach it, I'm not going to stop."

Of course she won't.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Michael Silver sounds off weekly on SI.com.

 

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