Starr Webb knows Sunday, Oct. 5 will be an emotional day.
“Every year it just continues to overwhelm me,” says Webb, co-director of Kamloops Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation CIBC Run for the Cure. “It’s just breathtaking — it’s loud, it’s lively, there’s tears of joy and tears of regret and it’s a fabulous day.”
About 1,200 people will descend on Riverside park for this year’s run and, should they match last year’s fundraising efforts, bring in nearly $150,000 for breast cancer research.
The run is one of the city’s largest — in part, Webb believes, because of how often breast cancer touches the lives of Kamloopsians.
“It hits a lot of us, a lot of women, and men as well,” said Webb. “Certainly men can get breast cancer, but also because their wives, their mothers, their daughters are impacted by it so strongly.”
In Canada, breast cancer is the most common cancer diagnosis for women, affecting one in nine women.
This year, about 3,200 women in B.C. will be diagnosed with the disease.
Survival rates for the disease are improving and the number of deaths has dropped dramatically in the past decades due to better screening and treatments.
In B.C., almost 92 per cent of women will survive five years past their diagnosis.
Teams that register for the race have a habit of coming back. Among the Kamloops participants is one group with a decade of runs behind it.
Webb said the emotion of the day has much to do with the repeat appeal. It’s true in her case as well. After running the race once, she volunteered when a broken leg left her unable to participate.
She’s now been involved for seven years.
“It is just an amazing day. I’m almost speechless sometimes when I think about it, because it’s such an emotional day,” she said.
“I’ve volunteered ever since I was a teenager and I have never, ever experienced this level of emotion at anything like this.”
Final registration for this year’s run begins at 9 a.m. in Riverside Park. Opening ceremonies are at 10 a.m., with a survivor parade at 10:30 a.m.
To register, donate, or volunteer for this year’s Run for the Cure, visit runforthecure.com.
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