The Race for the Cure Series

For you rock fans out there, sorry, but this series has nothing to do with that gloomy British band, The Cure. What it has to do with is a heck of a lot more important—finding a cure for breast cancer.
The Race for the Cure is the largest series of 5K runs in the United States. In 1997, the series was held in 77 cities throughout the country and included nearly half a million participants. The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation organizes this series of runs; proceeds from the runs provide funding for local and national breast cancer research, education, screening, and treatment programs.
In case you haven’t noticed by now, I like it when there’s a connection between running and the rest of society. Apparently, a lot of others do, too, because The Race for the Cure Series gets bigger and bigger every year. Just one event in the series, the Washington, DC one, is the single largest 5K in the country. Vice President Gore and his wife, Tipper, regularly run it, in part because of their family’s history of breast cancer. That link exists for me, too, because my mom has had breast cancer. Many participants in these events are running in honor or memory of a breast cancer patient. Some in the field are even breast cancer survivors.