That someone is the late Arnold Winokur, father to Marcy Winokur and her two sisters, and the husband of Helen Winokur. He was a doctor in town, a general practitioner who loved Rocky and Bullwinkle and had a habit of running aground while sailing. "He wasn't my dad," said Marcy Winokur. "He was my friend."
Hundreds attended his funeral last spring to mourn when he lost a thirty year battle with cancer at the age of 58. The family received an outpouring of condolences and sympathy cards, a testament to the number of lives he had touched. Marcy Winokur recalls an unsteady nonagenarian stepping carefully towards her mother to tell her that it was Dr. Winokur who kept her alive so long.
Marcy Winokur had a similar experience when she sent out fund raising letters this year. She decided to run the Boston Marathon with the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute as part of their marathon challenge to raise money for cancer research, and applied in the fall of this year. In her application, she wrote about her father and about her grandmother Elva, who has been in remission from stomach and esophageal cancer for five years.
Her own father visited Dana-Farber twice. Once was for a consultation. The other visit was two months before he died. His friend had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, and he went to support his friend, driving up with him to Boston to keep him company at the hospital.
She was selected to be one of about 500 runners with the group. And she made the qualifying time for the prestigious race, the oldest annual marathon in the world and the only major American marathon that requires a qualifying time.
This is despite its being her first marathon. An admissions officer with the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, she was active in high school and college, playing lacrosse and soccer. Those were the days when she would run three or five miles. Now to her a short run is nine or ten miles, which she runs with others who have been touched by cancer, including a woman who recently lost her mother to cancer, another who lost her aunt, and a nurse at Dana-Farber running in honor of one of her recently deceased patients.
Those running with Dana-Farber must raise at least $3,000. She set a goal of $7,000, and with 42 days to go until the race, she is only $200 short of her goal. Patients of Dr. Winokur, and the office of Shoreline Medical, Winokur's former practice, have donated. Members of Temple Beth Tikvah have been given. "I thought the fundraising part would be hard," said Winokur. "But people are very generous."
The running part has not been without its challenges. When she started on her longest run to date, a 16 miler, she was nervous. It was January 27. It has snowed, and the run, which took her through Wayland, Sudbury, Concord and a national wildlife preserve, was beautiful. But after mile eight, her knee started hurting. She finished, but she also strained her IT band, a fiber that runs from her hip to just below her knee. She started physical therapy the past week for her injury, and has continued to go to the gym.
She hasn't run in a while now because of injury, but she's not going to let it stop her. She plans to start up again in about two weeks and be ready for the marathon in six. If that sounds crazy, that's because runners are kind of crazy people, at least according to Winokur.
"It takes a crazy person to put their body through 26 miles," she said. Her reason for doing so is different from most. "I'm really doing this for my family," she explained. "To honor what we went through as a family."
Marcy Winokur has a blog about her experience training for the marathon at www.marcyruns.blogspot.com. You can donate to her campaign by going the Dana-Farber challenge website, www.dfmc.com, and click on "Support a runner"
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