My daughter started running the Race for the Cure three  years ago when a teammate on her soccer team lost her mother to breast cancer.  Running the race was a way the girls on her soccer team could feel like they were doing something to help the situation.

About 192,370 new cases of breast cancer will be diagnosed in American women this year alone.  Chances are that breast cancer will touch our lives somehow.  Women who fight breast cancer not only affect their families, but their friends, the friends of their family members, their co-workers and neighbors.

Now my daughter runs the race every year because every year she has a friend whose mother has been affected by breast cancer.  This year I decided to run with my daughter for the first time.  On Mother’s Day I found out my mother’s sister was diagnosed with breast cancer.  Now breast cancer has affected me.

This year’s Race for the Cure was at the Alliant Energy Center’s Willow Island and included a 5K run or walk as well as a 1 mile course.  The 12th annual Susan G. Komen Madison Race is the largest event for the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Madison Affiliate which raises money for the research, education, screening and treatment of Breast Cancer in the Dane County area. Susan G. Komen for the Cure was established in 1982 by Nancy Brinker to honor the memory of her sister, Susan G. Komen, who died from breast cancer at the age of 36.

Attending the Race for the Cure with my daughter for the first time this year was a little overwhelming.  It is an amazing community event.  While I could not keep up with my daughter and her soccer team mates, I walked-ran in unity with nearly 12,000 participants who were there for similar reasons -- they knew someone touched by this disease that kills 23 per 100,000.