The Save Your Ass Foundation

The name grabs you attention, right? Hopefully, you find it amusing. Maybe you're offended. Either way, you're mind is focused on the name.

You pause and wait for the pack of runners to move past you. You see the back of the shirt. SYA's hope is that the name will stick with you, for whatever reason, and soon, you'll make an appointment for a routine procedure that could save your life.

Save Your Ass's (SYA) is a new nonprofit organization established by my friend Morgan to spread awareness about colectoral cancer detection. Colectoral cancer is cancer of the bowel, rectum, or colon. Basically the areas of the body so many of us like to pretend aren't there.

What does this have to do with running?

Let's talk. Let's talk about training. Let's talk about being successful in past races and setting goals for future ones. Let's talk about training for months both alone and with a running group, dedicating all those Saturdays and evenings to get the mileage in, watching the diet (you think), doing the strength training (okay, you actually don't do well at the strength training but that's your aim for this marathon). And regardless of the work, all you feel is fatigue. Not I'm-tired-but-proud, but clear-cut exhaustion. When you run, your extremeties hurt and feel like not enough blood is getting to them. Walking up two flights of stairs to the cafeteria at work causes shortness of breath.

But, dammit, you can run those 20 miles with group, even if you're nearly comatose afterwards.

In your head, you know something is wrong. But for three, than four months, you push that thought away. You're getting older. Running just feels different at this age. What woman isn't tired? I didn't eat well yesterday. I paid for this stupid marathon I don't care if I have pneumonia I'm not bailing on it. To ensure you run the marathon, you tell everyone and their mother you're not only running but attempting a PR.

Get to marathon. Run 13.5 miles. Collapse. Go to doctor two weeks later (because even failing to finish marathon doesn't get you to a doctor. Wounds your pride too much to talk it about at first). Doctor does tests. You are extremely anemic. Your hematocrit level, which measures the percentage of red blood cells in the plasma, is a 4. Normal for women my age is between 36 and 46.

What does anemia have to do with SYA and colectoral cancer? My doctor insisted I have an EGD (esophagogastroduodenoscopy - there's a million dollar word!), short for an upper scope. I also had to have a colonoscopy, as they had to find out why I had such severe anemia at such a young age. The determination? I'm a long-distance runner with a shitty diet. Note to self - eat more iron.

What was particularly hard for me about this experience (and it wasn't the procedures. Actual colonoscopy - no big deal), was my reluctance to see a doctor when I knew I was so obviously sick. That has everything to do with SYA's mission. As an athlete, I thought of and think of myself as healthy. To admit that perhaps I wasn't poked a hole in the persona I had created. When I told people I was ill, people responded (without animosity), "But you're so active!" I wanted to shout, "I know! I run so I don't have to see doctors."

I think a lot of people have this mindset, even if it's hidden. We don't want to go see doctors. We talk about our family history ("Oh, no one has colon cancer in my family, I'm fine." or "My parents/grandparents/uncles/aunts lived to be 100 and they never had a colonoscopy/doctor's appointment.") Or we don't talk about it all. As a runner, I feel that I'm in the rare section of the population where we talk about our colons, if only to discuss how regular they are and how many bathroom breaks are needed at races. But I certainly don't get into discussions with many other people about them. And to be frank, until the whole anemia thing I don't think I'd ever had a conversation with my own DOCTOR about bowel movements, either.

SYA wants to get people talking about colonoscopies. They want to get beyond the excuses. Put out some fun teeshirts, make a fun race. Then make the appointment. The name was chosen so people have to talk about the obvious (A stands for ASS people - just thought I'd bring that up again). Wouldn't it be a different world were you could talk about colon cancer detection in the same way as people now talk about mammograms?

The Save Your Ass Foundation website will be up soon. We had our inaugural race on December 24.

Seth, Morgan (founder of SYA), Dan, Adam, me, and Buster the Velvet Bulldozer

There will be more races and more events soon, as well as a working website. In the meantime, information and/or inquiries can be found and sent to this site.

(On a sidenote that all of us involved found very funny, SaveYourASS has already been taken as a domain name by a donkey rescue foundation. Honestly, you can't make this stuff up.)