Peggy is meeting her friend and fellow runner, Christine, for lunch. It isn’t a happy occasion. Peggy needs to persuade Christine that it is time to give up her position as the co-captain and treasurer of their running team, a team of breast cancer survivors Christine organized after her own diagnosis in 1994. Since then, the twelve women on the team have challenged themselves and each other to run the Hood to Coast Relay race every summer. Running the race is both a path to and proof of their own recoveries.

An amazing race, perhaps the world’s longest relay, it begins on Mt. Hood, the highest point in Oregon’s Cascade Mountains and ends at Seaside, a beach town on the Pacific Ocean. The 196 mile course descends nearly 6,000 feet in elevation to the city of Portland, then winds 2,000 feet up and down the shoulders of the Coast Range before the runners cross the finish line on the beach. More than 800 teams participate, with the elite Nike and Adidas teams finishing in about 18 hours. The survivors’ team takes double that time.

In fact, two years ago, the team placed last. Close behind their van came the race committee picking up the orange cones. Beyond the finish line, the beach party for twenty thousand people, the grand celebration following the end of the race, was long over. The band was packed and gone. The food booths were closed. The team was embarrassed, not only for themselves, but also for their sponsor, the Susan G. Komen Foundation. In 1997, they vowed to do better.

After the first year Peggy ran, she thought she’d never do it again. It was horrible: thirty-six hours without sleep, in a crowded van if you weren’t running, or in the August heat if you were. Yet, when she got the notice of the planning meeting the following year, she decided to go -- if only to see her race companions. Once she got to the meeting and started talking to her friends, she forgot her grievances.

Like Breitenbush, these group meetings and the race itself are places to let down her guard. She can talk about the fear, the-grit-your-teeth-and-hold-on kind of fear. Running the Hood to Coast means thirty-six hours of not only talking about who she is and what she’s gone through, but of forgetting all about it, too. She needs a place to let that face out, the face of fear and anger and grief. And she needs the kind of laughter that comes from telling and hearing survivor jokes.

“Did you know that bilateral mastectomies allow a woman to wear ‘Bs’ for business and ‘Ds’ for dress up?”

“What is one of the modern wonders of the world? The tummy tuck that comes with a breast reconstruction.”

It is a kind of gallows humor that survivors relish.

No matter how much Peggy tells herself that her family can take it, that they would understand if she was grieving or angry or afraid, it is hard to let it all out. It’s much easier to show her feelings around women who’ve been through some of what she’s been through, with the group of breast cancer survivors who get together to run the Hood to Coast Relay. But this team means even more to Peggy than that.

At last year’s organizing meeting, Christine reached into a bag she brought with her and pulled out a stuffed animal, a rabbit with a pink survivor’s cap. The visor was signed by every one in the room, except Peggy. Peggy sat quietly next to her teammates, her long auburn hair framing a pixie’s face. She was thirty-nine years old.

“As you know, we must all be over 40 to qualify as a masters team,” Christine said. “Last year, Peggy, our baby, kept us from qualifying.” Her voice broke, “and this year she can’t run. We want you to take this to the hospital with you, Peggy.”

Peggy’s stem cell transplant was scheduled for the week after the August race. Following the procedure, she would be in isolation for three weeks. Christine handed her the rabbit and said, “We know we can’t visit, but anytime you need a hug, this bunny will be our stand in.”

Peggy was too choked up to say more than thank you. Some of her teammates had tears in their eyes. They all felt empathy for Peggy, but at the same time they were fearful that the next recurrence might be their own. Some of them felt guilty that this time it wasn’t.

The runners concentrated on a name for their team and after a few suggestions were discarded, they gave up and moved on to other matters. But a piece of paper was placed at the center of the table in case anyone had an idea during the rest of the meeting.

They worked on the equipment list, assigning flashlights, coolers, and other necessities for each runner to bring for her van. They had done this before. The excitement just wasn’t there. Then one of the runners reached for the paper in the center of the table and wrote a name. It was one everyone immediately agreed to. It was one that brought the excitement back: The team would be called “Peg’s Legs.”

Christine made sure that, while Peggy couldn’t run the race, she would ride in the van. She wanted Peggy to be the team’s cheerleader and mascot. Peggy was happy to be included and dutifully showed up with noisemakers and pompoms.