Two diseases, two runners, two victories

One of them was diagnosed with diabetes, the other with prostate cancer. They knew they were at the beginning of frightening journeys.

So they decided to run.

Tammy Westergard, 43, dropped 75 pounds and finished a marathon. Bob Crowell, 61, shrugged off the effects of radiation treatments and crossed the finish line of the toughest half-marathon in the state.

While they know each other, the two Carson City residents fought their battles separately, their families at their sides.

Why run? Wasn't it enough just to battle their diseases without adding another physical challenge to the pile?

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For Westergard, the answer was easy. Exercise would turn out to be the key to managing her disease.

Westergard, Carson City's deputy manager of the Office of Business Development, went through a dizzying education about what she would have to do to balance her blood sugar. Part of the answer was medication, but it wasn't the solution she was looking for.

"How can I beat this in another way," she asked herself, and the answer was to run.

The results came quickly. Her blood sugars stabilized and within months her doctor told her she could try going off her medications.

She wrote about the experience on a Web page:

"With type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, being a woman over 40, and admittedly a spaz, I was a heart attack (or worse... a stroke ...) waiting to happen. I've been pretty scared. So ... in the last 10 months I've kicked my own butt running around Carson City. Get this: I've lost almost 75 lbs, 14 sizes and no longer require any medication and my blood pressure is in check."

Westergard ran through early morning darkness, rain, snow and anything else that keeps most other people indoors.

And, on June 3, she finished the San Diego Rock 'N Roll Marathon. At race end, she was happy that this part of her journey was over, successfully. She felt herself choking up, but that gave way to a smile as she made her way to the aid station to get ice packs for her knees.

She not only finished, but finished fast, in the top 20 percent of runners and in the top 10 percent of female runners.

She didn't run the race only for herself. Along the way, she raised more than $4,000 for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and dedicated her race to Patty Olsen, a woman battling lymphoma.

To learn more about her experience, visit the Web site

www.teamintraining.org. Click on "Find a participant" and enter her name.

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Running the Prison Hill Half Marathon is a test even for young runners in their prime. The course climbs and descends hill after hill, some so steep it's hard to get your footing.

But finishing that race again this year was Crowell's goal, even though it was being held April 28, just two weeks after his final radiation treatment.

"I figured I needed a goal to get through it," said Crowell, a Carson City attorney who has been a runner for 26 years.

The diagnosis last summer of medium grade cancer was one of the lowest points in his life. He had to confront the possibility that it might kill him.

Even then he continued to run, and he never missed a day of work. On the September day of the surgery to remove his prostate, he decided to run a familiar route up Kings Canyon. On the way down, he remembers passing a woman, telling her he was on his way to have his prostate removed. He chuckles at the memory of her startled face.

The operation at Sierra Surgery Center was a success. The doctors told him not to run for six weeks, and he counted off the days. He was back on the Kings Canyon trail in six weeks and one day.

It was not the end of his trial. A biopsy showed he now had aggressive high grade cancer and it was spreading. That's when the 36 radiation treatments began.

But he was there at the Prison Hill starting line before 7 a.m., tired before the race even began, and in nowhere near the shape he was used to. He crossed the finish line almost four hours later, far slower than in previous years.

He's never been more proud of a race.

And he's confident that he is winning his battle with cancer.

"I'm on the right side of the statistics," he said. "It looks like the treatments are working."

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I'm a runner, at least during lunch hours on most weekdays.

Some days running is a drudgery, a challenge just to get past a mile. Then there's the litany of minor injuries. Some muscle, some tendon, some ligament always seems to be strained and then I invariably go and make it worse by ignoring it and running again the next day instead of resting it, which is what my body is really telling me to do. There is something about running that calls you back time after time.

I think that voice is different for each runner. The best answer I've heard to the question of "why do you run" is that it feels awful not to. That's an answer serious runners (read: addicted) would give. For them ... us, it's perfectly logical that Forrest Gump would choose to run across the country, over and over. Running is the perfect way to escape something ... whether it's as tangible as a mugger or as spiritual as a personal loss, or even everyday stress.

There are other reasons. For example, I may be growing delusional as I age, but I think I can go farther and faster than I did before, so I keep striving. And it feels good to be physically exhausted after running, then feel invigorated and healthy the rest of the day.

But back to those aches and pains. It seems that during the course of making idle talk at the gym, I've griped occasionally about what happens to be hurting on that day. So, the other day when someone asked me about my leg wrapped up in an Ace bandage, I thought about Tammy and Bob and gave the only answer possible.

"I've got nothing to complain about."

• Barry Ginter is editor of the Appeal. You can reach him at 881-1221, or via e-mail at bginter@nevadaappeal.com