Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
RUNNING FOR LIFE
Helene Neville has 40 days to fight cancer, prep for final record run across America
I love running and unveiling how much right there is in our world, more than I ever imagined. I try to inspire others to acknowledge that we are all one’ ...
Cancer survivor, Las Vegas nurse and grandmother Helene Neville already has four world records from her amazing runs around and across America. You would think that after running the nearly 10,000 perimeter miles, she’d conquered everything — but now she plans to finish with the ultimate challenge.
Not satisfied with her One on the Run achievements, Helene, 56, plans to meet the people and run the states that she missed while on the four north-to-south, westto-east, south-to-north and east-towest legs. “I want to finish the final 12 states because I am so close to doing something that no one has ever done,” she told me.
Her record-breaking runs started in 2010 with 2,520 miles in 93-degree summer days from Ocean Beach, California, to Atlantic Beach, Florida. The next 2,000 miles took 72 days from Florida to the Canadian border in Maine. It took her 45 days to run from Vancouver, British Columbia, south to the U.S. border at Tijuana, Mexico.
Her final leg of 3,400 miles across the top of the country to complete the 10,000-mile perimeter of the lower 48 states was from Maine to Washington State. In all, it was more than 330 non-consecutive days for a total of 9,715 miles. Not only is it a phenomenal feat of human endurance, but all the more remarkable because Helene herself is a medical miracle.
She underwent three brain surgeries in the 1990s to beat Hodgkin’s Lymphoma cancer and was treated with follow-up chemotherapy and radiation. In 2012, she was diagnosed with T-Cell Lymphoma and told to get her affairs in order because death was inevitable. Yet today she’s still alive and manages to run 25 miles a day.
“My run is not to realize my own dream but to inspire others to realize theirs,” she said. “My challenge is to motivate others into action.” There’s no question that Helene is a remarkable woman and a visionary with an indomitable spirit. She runs for causes as she uncovers the needs of others across the nation, inspiring them to have a full, rich life built on fitness and nutrition.
She wants to restore the health of America: “It’s up to you and me to take positive action to ensure that the future is everything it can possibly be. I can inspire others to rethink their own impossible one person and one mile at a time.”
She topped off her four sides of America last year with a 135-mile, nonstop, back-and-forth run along the Strip between the south and north ends at the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign and Downtown on Fremont Street. I was with her on one section near The Stratosphere. Now Helene, who set the world record as the first grandmother, nurse and cancer survivor to run the perimeter of the contiguous United States, has a new goal.
She’s just 40 days away from starting her final run May 1: Nurses Day. This time she plans a 4,000-mile jaunt in just under 5 months with a route through Wyoming to West Virginia and back through Utah before running down the Strip to make a turn on Sahara and finish in the parking lot of Westgate, where she will begin.
Westgate headliner “Sexxy” stars have promised to host the kickoff and welcome home Zumba parties and run the first and last mile with Helene:
How are you preparing for the final run?
I train alongside the Evo athletes (EvoUltraFit.com) who are there perfecting their talents for the next World Series, Olympic Games, Stanley Cup, Super Bowl, PGA, ballet and a host of other sports and professional activities ...
Read the rest of this story at robinleach.reviewjournal.com.