Jenny Whitaker says her bout with Cancer sent her into a depression but running half marathons got her back on track

Following a yearlong course of treatment, one that had her going in every three weeks for a full year of “an infusion of some kind of chemical,” it also sent her into a depression. “I found myself kind of framing every decision I made like ‘What if I don’t make it?’ … and it really just started messing with my head so I just needed to set a really big, audacious goal.” That goal — one she came up with last November — is why the Bozeman, Montana, resident will travel to Las Vegas this month to race in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon. It will be her 11th half-marathon of the year as she nears the completion of her goal — one half-marathon per month for each month of 2018. Whitaker said she has been a runner for 20 years, but not too seriously until the past few years. She had been racing more and started doing half-marathons, posting her best time in September 2016. Two weeks after that half-marathon, her husband, Rich, found a lump near her ribs. Four months after a mammogram had come back clean, Whitaker was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer at 44 that took a year of treatment and wrapped up in October 2017.

posted Wednesday November 7th