Cupid’s Chase 5K – What is MS & Race Recap

Saturday, 2/15, my husband Dave & I ran/walked Cupid’s Chase 5K to benefit the National MS Society.

The National MS Society is a cause that’s very close to my heart.

I worked at the National MS Society, Greater New England Chapter for 2 years, managing Walk MS Boston and the 3 Day, 50 Mile MS Challenge Walk Cape Cod. I’ve become friends with many NMSS event participants, and still consider some MS Challenge Walk walkers & volunteers my “Challenge Walk Family.”

My Mom has MS. She’s doing incredibly well. You wouldn’t know from looking at her that she has MS, and for years she didn’t want me telling anyone. (As an adult, I now understand why she feared her employer knowing her diagnosis.) My Mom is a huge inspiration to me. When MS took away her ability to hold a calligraphy pen, she didn’t stop creating art. She just moved to painting with thicker brushes and created works of art using computer design programs.

I’ve seen 1st hand the advancement in MS medications. For 20 years, my Mom gave her self an injection every week, in hopes that it would keep her MS symptoms from advancing. Just this year, she switched from shots to a pill! That’s an amazing quality of life change!

I’m hopeful I will see a cure for MS in my lifetime, but these small steps in the meantime are encouraging. (Many of my friends with MS have switched from shots to pills for MS treatments too!)

MS is thought to affect more than 2.3 million people worldwide. While the disease is not contagious or directly inherited, epidemiologists—the scientists who study patterns of disease—have identified factors in the distribution of MS around the world that may eventually help determine what causes the disease. These factors include gender, genetics, age, geography, and ethnic background. MS is significantly more common (at least 2-3 times) in women than men. MS is not directly inherited, but genetics play an important role in who gets the disease. While the risk of developing MS in the general population is 1/750, the risk rises to 1/40 in anyone who has a close relative (parent, sibling, child) with the disease.

Exciting update: Cupid’s Chase 5K raised $5,000 which will go directly to the National MS Society!

Ok, enough about MS and how much I want a cure found – on to talk about the race!

There were about 300 runners, which was great for a 1st time event.

Unfortunately, the course was very icy, and often roads were not blocked for the runners, so we’d have to walk single file in the shoulder of the road. Since there was still a lot of snow on the ground from recent storms, I was afraid of slipping on ice, snow, or slush and falling into traffic. I walked most of the course to prevent this.

My husband Dave was great at encouraging me, and we ran during non-icy parts of the course, in intervals of running & walking between light poles.

I just got our race results, and it turns out we actually ran 3.5 miles, not 3.1.

David Kempe         Total time 49:27 Pace 14:08
Danielle Kempe      Total time 49:27 Pace 14:08

I’m glad that one of the 5Ks I run this year is for a cause so close to my heart.