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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, September 20, 2002

Race for the Cure runs true in fight against cancer

By Tanya Bricking
Advertiser Staff Writer

GOODNESS


Registration info for the Race for the Cure

Registration for the Race for the Cure is $18 if postmarked by today; $25 for applications thereafter. Packet pick-up will be Sep. 28 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Aloha Tower Marketplace, where late registration will be available as well.

Late pick-up is at Kapi'olani Park on race morning from 6 to 6:45 a.m. There will be no official registration on race day.

Entry forms with complete details are available at all Chevron Stations, Safeway stores, Kapiolani Womens' Center, Running Room, Runner's Route, Sports Authority, in Hawaii Race Magazine, or by calling the local information line at 973-5967.

Cindy Goodness was 28 when she first noticed a lump in her breast.

She dismissed it. How could it be cancer? She was too young and healthy, she thought.

When the lump grew bigger and changed shape, Goodness decided to go to the doctor. Bad news: It was breast cancer.

The good news: Goodness, now 32, survived having the tumor removed and months of chemotherapy and radiation.

Her latest battle has been with leukemia.

Goodness, a Honolulu public defender, should be back to work in about a month after recovering from a bone marrow transplant.

She's feeling well enough to run again, and she's bound to have plenty of people cheering her on when she takes her role as this year's survivor chairwoman for the eighth annual Susan G. Komen Hawaii Race for the Cure.

The Sept. 29 event at Kapi'olani Park includes a 5K race and one-mile walk. Proceeds go toward breast cancer research projects. Last year, 5,200 people participated here and raised $180,000, 75 percent of which goes to local projects and research.

"It's a unique race," Goodness said. "You get out there and you see all these people wearing signs" in memory or in celebration of people who have faced breast cancer.

Goodness will wear a sign for Lynn Levinson, her sophomore English teacher at Punahou School, who died of cancer in 2000 at the age of 53. She was the one who put Goodness in touch with other breast-cancer survivors.

As a role model herself, Goodness wants to give other women equal measures of reassurance and education.

"On the whole, it's a very beatable disease," she said. "Really, there is no excuse for women dying from this if they catch it early."