This is it – the last six days of Run 31. Six more people and one whole community to move for, and then we close the month out together.
Their stories air weekday mornings at 8:45 on KAFE 104.1. Every dedication also lands on our Feel Good Moment page, and we’re adding each one here as it airs.
Tomorrow
Walk the last mile with us – Friday, October 30
Meet at the Whatcom Humane Society Thrift Store at 8:45am, walk one mile up Northwest Ave at 9:00, and finish at Mt. Baker Imaging for their annual walk-in mammogram day. MHS Marching Band, WCC Cheerleaders, special sugar cookies from Slice of Heaven while supplies last, and a few surprises. Plenty of parking, rides back to the start, rain or shine.
Last call on shirts
Today is your last chance to pick yours up at the station during office hours, roughly 7:30 to 5, at 2219 Yew Street Road in Bellingham – or grab it at the walk tomorrow morning. Anything unclaimed by Friday goes to other walkers that day. Every shirt was donated by Pacific Point Apparel.
The final six days
Monday, Day 26 – Monica
Tuesday, Day 27 – Jen
Wednesday, Day 28 – Carol and Korissa
Thursday, Day 29 – Robin
Friday, Day 30 – All of us, together
Saturday, Day 31 – The roll call
Monday – Monica
Monica was a breast cancer survivor for eight years, and her sister Nicole will tell you exactly what she was fighting for: four boys who needed their mom.
Multiple surgeries. Treatments. Then it moved to her brain, and there were more surgeries, chemotherapy, radiation, infections, a reaction to sutures, wounds that wouldn’t heal. Nicole says her sister persisted through all of it.
“After 8 years her pain ended. We miss our sister, mother, daughter, wife, friend.”
Nicole joined us live to tell us about her. Read Monica’s full story and hear the interview ›
Tuesday – Jen
Jen nominated herself, and five generations of her family along with her.
About twenty years ago her mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and had genetic testing done. That’s when they found the BRCA2 mutation – a mutation linked to cancers that affect every gender. Her family has seen breast, ovarian, uterine and prostate cancer. Her uncle spent his entire career specializing in breast cancer treatment, and then was diagnosed with breast cancer himself.
Jen’s own diagnosis came in 2022: triple negative breast cancer. While she was preparing for treatment, they found a second, separate primary cancer of the hormone responsive type. Two cancers at once. As Jen puts it, finding and treating the fast-moving one is likely what saved her from the slow one.
Her mom has been cancer free for twenty years. Her uncle is tumor free. Jen is here.
“Their journey is part of ours, and we are part of future patients. Together we can cure cancer.”
Jen came into the studio to tell us the whole thing. Read Jen’s full story and hear the interview ›
Wednesday – Carol and Korissa
Heather lost her cousin Korissa and her aunt Carol – Korissa’s mother – to breast cancer within the same year. Korissa was twenty.
When Heather joined us, she spent most of the conversation on how joyful the two of them were. She also told us that losing them has opened up conversations in her family that weren’t happening before, about screening and family history, and that the two of them still have an impact on her everyday life.
She started running the day she sent us their names, and she’s keeping it up. Read their full story and hear the interview ›
Thursday – Robin
Robin’s mother had stage IV breast cancer. Years after her mother died, Robin started having recurring dreams about her – often enough that they got her thinking about the last years of her mom’s life.
Robin had never had a mammogram. But the dreams reminded her of the breast self-examination training she’d learned in college, so she checked herself. That’s when she found a lump.
“After my diagnosis, the dreams stopped. I believe my mother had been looking after me in the only way she could.”
Two surgeries in one week, chemotherapy, radiation, and years of hormone therapy later, she’s been NED – no evidence of disease – for more than fifteen years. These days she keeps nineteen chickens and makes everyone around her smile.
Read Robin’s full story and hear her dedication ›
Friday – All of us, together
Day 30 doesn’t have one name on it.
Friday’s mile belongs to everybody who shows up at the thrift store at 8:45 and walks that mile with us – the people who signed up in week one, the ones who joined late, the ones who are coming just because it’s Friday and it sounded like a good thing to do. That’s the community this month built, and it’s who we’re holding space for.
Everything you need to know about Friday ›
Saturday – The roll call
The 30th isn’t the last day of October, and we’re not skipping the 31st.
On Saturday, Patrice runs one final mile on her own – and then reads all thirty names out loud, one after the next, as a tribute to every person this month has been for. We’ll post the recording right here when it’s done.
Two days left. Come get one in.
It is not too late. Run it, walk it, crawl it – treadmill, trail, a lap around the block with the dog. Any pace, any time of day. One mile is one mile, and if you’ve missed a few, nobody is counting. Just start again.
Log your miles in the Run 31 Strava group, share them with #KAFERuns31, or text a photo to 360.676.5233. We love seeing them.
Run for them. Get screened for you.
Join us Friday
Read every story
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