On the first day of Kim Skarphol’s retirement, she got the call.
Just weeks before, she had undergone her annual mammogram, and doctors saw an area they didn’t like. They delivered the news on New Year’s Day: breast cancer.
“I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’” Skarphol, 65, told Runner’s World. “It was my first day of retirement, but they did say it was a fabulous prognosis. I didn’t need radiation, and it didn’t spread to my lymph nodes, but the doctors said it would be really challenging for me to do certain things for at least a little bit.”
One of these things was running. The Fargo, North Dakota, native had been running since she was in high school—at that time, women, at least in North Dakota, weren’t allowed to run farther than half a mile. She stuck with the hobby through her adult life, racking up several 10K finishes and even a few marathons.
Most importantly, running was a form of therapy for her, just as it is for many runners. So even if it was difficult, she wanted to try to run through her treatment. But to do that, she knew she’d need help from her friends.
“I was going to go through eight rounds of chemotherapy, and some of those would be really aggressive sessions,” Skarphol said. “So I thought, ‘Hold my beer. I can’t give up.’ I contacted my core group of running friends, and I asked them if they’d join me to run to each of my chemo appointments.”
Before her first session, she expected maybe one or two of her running friends to show up and run the three-mile route to Sanford Roger Maris Cancer Center with her, donning pink-inspired running outfits. She was shocked when eight people were waiting for her.
The group continued to grow. Every other Thursday for her sessions, new faces popped up. Even when the coronavirus pandemic arrived, she was met by socially-distant smiling faces in groups of fewer than 10 to run-walk her to her appointments. Even on April 9, when icy sleet and winds gusting upwards of 30 miles per hour blasted the area, they got her there with a positive attitude.
“My tribe just grew and grew,” she said. “Fatigue set in and took a big toll, but this group would’ve carried me there. They were so excited every other Thursday that we did this.”
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On April 21, the final session had arrived. The state had just increased the limit on group gatherings to 20 people, so the group wanted to go big. And, as Skarphol excitedly put it, “20 flippin’ people showed up.”
“Having this crew, it made me feel so humbled, so blessed, and so loved,” Skarphol said. “It was powerful. I have to say it was even fun. I mean, how can that be? I was going to cancer treatment, and it was fun. It was absolutely overwhelming.”
Skarphol still has a follow up with doctors in August, but for now, she is in the clear. With that out of the way, she’s hoping to realize her retirement goal of getting her mileage back up and possibly doing the Fargo Half Marathon in August.
And that’s just the beginning. She just turned 65, and she hopes to mark that milestone by riding her bike 65 miles.
Drew covers a variety of subjects for Runner’s World and Bicycling, and he specializes in writing and editing human interest pieces while also covering health, wellness, gear, and fitness for the brand. His work has previously been published in Men’s Health.
