On Sunday May 3rd I rode my bike down to Freedom Plaza (located just on the east side of the White House) to run in the Race for Hope, a 5K run/walk around the streets of D.C. to benefit the National Brain Tumor Society and Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure. My last three years of PhD research in the Tumor Biology Training Program at Georgetown have been spent analyzing the cancer genome of the deadly brain tumor called glioblastoma multiforme that afflicts ~10,000 Americans each year. I have been identifying new genes that drive the pathogenesis of glioblastoma in the hopes of discovering new successful therapeutics for this uniformly lethal brain cancer. For more information on my research, please see one of my recent publications "Identification of p18INK4c as a tumor suppressor gene in glioblastoma multiforme" at http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/68/8/2564.My previous personal best at the 5K distance was 19 min 6 sec run in October 2006. I had been putting in a lot of miles leading up to this race and had high hopes of running somewhere under 19 minutes. Unfortunately, all the running I had been doing was long slow mileage getting ready for the Bull Run 50, and the single interval session I did on a track two days before this race was not enough to get me in speed mode. It turned out to be a rainy morning on race day and the course was covered in puddles. After a ceremonial start by David Cook (last year's American Idol winner) and a crowd of brain tumor survivors carrying yellow balloons, the race went off at 9 a.m. I started up front and kept up with the leaders for a bit but just wasn't able to keep their pace all the way home. After dodging puddles rather unsuccessfully for 3.1 miles, I crossed the finish line in 19 min 23 sec (6:15 min/mile pace) good for 20th place out of 1,470 timed finishers. There were several high school track/cross country students out to run that morning, and I embarassingly was beaten by three 15 year olds, ouch! I have got to get faster.
No comments:
Post a Comment