By Ramsey Al-Rikabi
Times Herald-Record
ral-rikabi@th-record.com

Rock Hill - The call from JFK airport came two days before the race.

"Mr. Chavez is waiting for you," the woman said to Myriam Loor, a co-organizer of yesterday's Celebrate Life Half Marathon.

A while back, runner Alberto Chavez had sent an e-mail in broken English inquiring about the race. He's from the Mexican state of Michoacan, something like 2,000-plus miles away.

Loor explained it to him: a no-prize-money half-marathon - 13 miles - to raise cash for cancer patients. No need to come all the way to the U.S.

But 3 p.m. Friday the phone rang. Chavez was here, wearing black pants and a jacket with the Mexican flag.

He continued with the Mexican flag theme yesterday: a small man with a white moustache and a green knit hat, he wore a white, red and green running uniform that said MEXICO in black.

Loor called him "our surprise guest," after the race. She translated his explanation that he started running when he was 56 because, he says, he was fat.

Turns out he liked running, was sort of good at running, and now at 71, he travels North America on funds raised in his home state to keep running.

When he flew home yesterday, Loor said, he had $5 left.

Chavez was one of about 250 who took part in the half marathon yesterday through the lake-side neighborhoods here. The $10,000 raised through the $25 registration fee will help pay cancer patients' medication through Citizens Reunited to Overcome Cancer, a local nonprofit.

"We're proud the money goes straight to the patients," said Kathleen Rifkin, co-director of the race. "There's no administration, no overhead costs."

Besides the money raised for cancer patients, the run's scheduling incidentally gives runners something to do in the icicle-from-the-eves colder months.

Lilian Kroner has been running for nearly 30 years. At age 12, in Mexico, she was diagnosed with a leukemia-based blood disease, and when she asked how she would know if she's getting better, a healer answered: "When you will be able to run."

And she did. Got cervical cancer in 1999 and got over that and kept running.

"The longer and faster I run," she said, "the better I will be. Right?"

For more information about Citizens Reunited to Overcome Cancer, go to www.crocalumni.org.

Article taken from The Times Herald Record - Monday March 6, 2006