At age 68, Tiverton's Mary Jane Johnson ready to conquer Boston Marathon
What makes Mary Jane Johnson run? The answer, at first, is “time to think.”
But as she thought more about the question itself, Johnson easily rattled off a list of reasons why she runs.
For one, running may have saved her life.
At age 68, and a cancer survivor, Johnson is gearing up for a long run – the Boston Marathon this spring as part of the Dana Farber Marathon Challenge. She’s also holding a fundraiser, Lacing Up For Cancer, at Sandywoods on March 10.
Johnson, a resident of Tiverton, said she “played every card she had” to get into the Dana Farber Marathon Challenge. About 3,000 people apply, and only 1,500 are given numbers to run. “I told them, ‘I’m old. I’m deaf. And I’m a cancer survivor. And I’ve raised money before.' ...They were very interested,” said Johnson, laughing.
Johnson started running in her early 50s when menopause hit and she started to put on weight. She used to dance, walk, do aerobics, bike and ski, but never considered running, even when her husband, Byron, and their oldest son used to run.
In running, she found something unlike any of her other physical activities. “Running for me is the most relaxing — it’s thought provoking. And to train for the marathon — or any race — is hard work,” she said.
A teacher for the deaf, Johnson used to tell her fellow teachers at Clarke Schools for Hearing and Speech to give her a problem to solve when they were leaving on Friday night and she’d work it out while she was doing her long run on the weekend, thinking about a solution as she logged mile after mile.
After the Boston Marathon bombing, Johnson set her sights on running a marathon. She applied for a number for the New York City Marathon through Clarke Schools, which has a campus in New York City. Raising money for Clarke Schools, Johnson ran the NYC Marathon in 2013 and 2014.
Then in 2015, Johnson said she was going for a third attempt at the NYC Marathon. Though she was feeling very strong in her training, something just didn’t feel right, she said. Her doctor couldn’t find anything wrong, and they finally treated her for a urinary tract infection five days before the marathon.
At first, she wasn’t going to do the marathon, she said, but she changed her mind. Despite her husband Byron’s objections, she headed off to New York to run the marathon with a couple friends. On the Verrazano Bridge, at the very beginning of the NYC Marathon, Johnson said she knew she wasn’t going to make it. She stopped every mile at every first aid station to catch her breath and get checked out.
“I made it eight miles. Two days later, they did a scope and found one tumor and a week later, they did surgery and found four in my bladder – three of them were cancer,” she said.
That was in November 2015. Not liking the treatment options her doctors offered, she signed up for a clinical trial with Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, for three months. But the vaccine they were using didn’t do what doctors there thought it would do and she ended up with a re-occurrence in March. That tumor was removed and Johnson did the traditional treatment locally. A side effect of her cancer treatment resulted in a blocked kidney.
For two months last fall, she was laid up at home while being treated for the kidney blockage with a tube in her back that required her to sleep on only one side and not get her back wet. “As I was sitting here being bored and crazed I got online and saw the Dana Farber marathon application and I said to myself, 'What the heck. I’ve done it before.' I said, ‘I can do this — and it’s for cancer.’”
Though she doesn’t consider herself to be an A Type personality, Johnson said she’s driven to meet goals. As a teacher for the deaf, Johnson was offered the opportunity to lead a research project at Women and Infants Hospital screening newborns’ hearing in 1991. The project, which measures cochlear echoes, is now the standard of care across the country. “It was really important to me. If anybody met me then, they would say I was a maniac driven to finish that project. It’s just that this was a goal and I was committed to finishing it.”
Not being able to complete the New York City Marathon in 2015 was the trigger that led to her doctors diagnosing her cancer. “If you think about it, running saved my life. It could have been nine or 10 years before the doctors found a tumor.”
The disappointment of not being able to meet that goal in 2015 is part of what’s driving her to complete the Boston Marathon on April 16. Following the Dana Farber training schedule for an intermediate runner, Johnson said she’s now averaging somewhere between 27 to 35 miles of running a week.
“Running gives me a goal. It gives me a reason to get up off the couch and move…to eat healthy, sleep well and do all the good things that will keep me healthy,” she said “Running has taught me how to listen to my body and to recognize signals.”
IF YOU GO
Lacing Up For Cancer, a fundraiser to support Johnson’s efforts to raise money for the Dana Farber Barr Program research initiative, will be held on Saturday, March 10 from 6 to 10 p.m. at Sandywoods Farmhouse, 43 Muse Way, Tiverton.
Tickets are a two-step process:
Register for tickets at eventbrite.com (“Lacing Up For Cancer”)
Then go to The Dana Farber Page to purchase your tickets for the requested donation of $25 per ticket.
In addition to the music of local acoustic duo Fred and Barney (her husband Byron), the fun, engaging Digg It Band will be sure to get people up and dancing. The evening will also feature singer-songwriter Troy Ramey, who was a top-12 finalist on NBC’s “The Voice” in 2017. There will also be an “opportunity raffle/auction,” with items donated by local businesses. The event is BYOB, and light fare will be provided. In the event that you cannot attend, but still want to support this effort, donations can be made on the DFMC site.
Email Linda Murphy at lmurphy@heraldnews.com.