Cancer may have changed my life but running saved it. After a cancer diagnosis at age 40 I set out to run a marathon, something I had long wanted to do but didn’t believe I could. Later that year as I crossed the first of many finish lines, I realized I could spend the rest of my life giving back to the running community and it would never begin to match what I had received. I had never known a more encouraging and supportive group of people and I was hooked!
I continued running and and step by step worked at rebuilding my life. Living in a sleepy coastal community we didn’t have any really good organized races or local running community so after participating and having a poor race experience in the area, I said to my family, “I wish we could put on one race, one really great race in the area we’ve grown to love and call home”. That comment gave birth to our family owned business, Coastal Race Productions and it took on a life of its own! Just over 8 years later, we have hosted over 40 races with approximately 10,000 runners annually and in 2019 won the Brunswick County Economic Impact Award.
We have also launched our counties first run club and recently added a beginners walk/running program for women (first program of its type in our area). Bart Yasso says, “ Never limit where running can take you.” And he is absolutely right!