Trentonian 1/29/08: Gilmore column

GILMORE’S MESSAGE: YOU CAN’T GIVE UP

Trentonian

Tuesday, January 29, 2008 3:00 AM EST

By AARON BRACY

CHERRY HILL – We all know a Lois Gilmore. Maybe it’s a friend, a family member or an acquaintance, but the sad reality is we all know someone who, like Gilmore, has been afflicted with cancer.

We know the devastation the disease can cause, know how it ravages the individual and their support system. Family members know how it all seems so unfair, seeing their loved one suffer while hoping and praying he or she will return to health while knowing the odds sometimes aren’t in their favor.

Sadly, we all know a Lois Gilmore. Luckily, we can all get to know the Lois Gilmore.

We all need to hear her story, whether you’re a cancer patient, a cancer survivor, a family member of someone with the disease, or none of these. Because Lois Gilmore’s story is about survival, it’s about overcoming insurmountable odds, about the strength of the human spirit and the power of sports.

Gilmore was stricken with breast cancer in 1989. Devastated, she sunk into a deep depression, wandering around the house aimlessly while waiting for death to arrive. Until one day she took a walk outside, looked at the sky, breathed the air and realized, “This is wonderful. I have a lot to be thankful for.”

She started venturing outside more, and her walks turned into jogs and her jogs turned into runs and her runs turned her into the finest runner in the country in her age group.

“I’ve always been very active and then when I had this problem, I couldn’t do anything,” said Gilmore, who was honored last night as the Most Courageous Athlete at the 104th annual Philadelphia Sports Writers banquet. “I spent a lot of time in the house and worried about myself and thought about myself all the time, which is very bad. So I decided to get out and walk.”

Soon the Janesville, Wis., resident was doing more than just walking, and she started entering road races.

“I like that competition,” Gilmore said. “It gave me a goal and if I didn’t compete, I think I’d get lazy. You can run but you’re only jogging, but when you race you’re running – really running.”

Boy, did she run. With the cancer in complete remission, Gilmore rose to the No. 1 ranking in her age group by 2001.

And then her world collapsed for the second time.

She was out for a six-mile training run in December of 2002 when she fell. She got up and fell again, this time arising with double-vision and a headache. She went straight to the hospital after arriving home and the news wasn’t good.

Gilmore had a stroke and her doctors said she had only a 10 percent chance to survive. Her condition was grave for 10 days and she spent 30 days in intensive care before being released. Soon after returning home, her thoughts quickly turned to running.

Because she had lost her peripheral vision and much of her memory, two of her four doctors said running was out of the question, but the other two – one of whom is a runner – said she could run as long as she was careful. Well, that was a significant problem considering she couldn’t see.

Undeterred, Gilmore started walking and her walks turned into jogs and her jogs turned into runs and her runs – that’s right, turned her into the finest runner in the country in her age group – again.

On her climb back to the top of the masters division, the now 77-year-old Gilmore had to overcome another, non health-related problem.

“It was very hard because when I first came back I kept falling down because I couldn’t see,” she said. “I would run into fence posts. The first time I came back to do a race I ran into a street sign, knocked myself down.”

Imagine that? Despite running into signs, barricades and the like, Gilmore never quit.

“I finished every race I ever fell down in,” she said. “I was black and blue and bleeding some of the time, but I got through it.”

Thankfully, she hasn’t hit any stop signs in over a year. That’s counting the 64 races, ranging from five to 15 kilometers, in which she competed in 2007. The highlight of her year came in August, when she set an age-group record by covering 10 kilometers in 55 minutes, 27 seconds at the U.S. Masters Outdoor Championships in Orono, Maine.

Who knows, maybe she’ll go even faster this year. Either way, she’ll keep running.

“I’ll go as long as my body says I can,” she said.

That may or may not be true because her body twice has tried to stop her without success. Perhaps the reason for that can be found in the message she has for all of us.

“You just can’t give up,” Gilmore said. “You have to do as much as you can, you can’t sit home, you can’t stop living, you’ve got to keep living.”

 

Contact Aaron Bracy at phillysportsbeat@gmail.com. Visit aaronswritingservice.com for information about his editing and writing services, and phillysportsbeat.com to read his blog on Philadelphia sports.

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