{"id":44225,"date":"2016-10-18T17:49:50","date_gmt":"2016-10-18T22:49:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=44225"},"modified":"2016-10-18T17:49:50","modified_gmt":"2016-10-18T22:49:50","slug":"chicago-marathon-champion-outruns-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/chicago-marathon-champion-outruns-cancer\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Marathon champion outruns cancer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Siyan (Jen) Huang<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"dropcap\">Cancer, a relentless killer,\u00a0 gave hope to Serena Burla. Her cancer in her right hamstring brought her the courage and strength to run marathons.<\/p>\n<p>Burla, 34,\u00a0 was the first American woman to cross the finish line in the Bank of America Chicago Marathon on Oct. 9. With an overall rank of the seventh in the female group and a time of 2:30:40, Burla finished the race just behind the four Kenyan runners and two Ethiopian runners who ranked one through six.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Seren Burla: Chicago Marathon Champion Outruns Cancer\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/187903903?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Burla played various sports with her active family when she was a kid growing up in Wisconsin. Burla\u2019s father, a high school running coach in Waukesha, Wis., had never pushed her to become a runner but encouraged her. Burla got hooked on running as a little girl and became a professional runner when she grew up.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe tried all different sports as kids, but running was my love, and the thing that I excelled best at,\u201d said Burla, \u201cEven when I was five years old, my dad would invite me to run the laps with his team. And I thought I was at the Olympics or something.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Burla was a three-time National Collegiate Athletic Association Cross Country Championships qualifier and an All-American while at the University of Missouri. By age 27, she had participated in a 10,000 meter, 5K and longer races but never got up the courage to conquer a marathon.<\/p>\n<p>Then in 2010, at age 27, Burla was diagnosed with synovial sarcoma, a malignant tumor, on her right hamstring, which left her in a huge shock.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was having really intense pain. The tumor was actually pushing on a nerve. But being a runner, I just thought it was something running related,\u201d said Burla.<\/p>\n<p>Burla was optimistic about her condition when she went to see doctors. However, after a magnetic resonance imaging scan, everything changed. The pain in her leg meant her illness might jeopardize her running career. Doctors were even thinking about\u00a0 amputation to keep her alive. Fortunately, the final decision was to remove the tumor and a major muscle of her hamstring. Her right leg is still functional after that surgery in February, 2010.<\/p>\n<p>Isaya Okwiya, Burla\u2019s coach, gave her unrelenting support for fighting against cancer. \u201cHe was really there every step of the way, going to appointments, being the listening ear I needed. To gather the information and be able to communicate to me,\u201d said Burla,\u201d He is my rock.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With her leg gradually recovering, Burla went back to the running field. Beating cancer became a source of strength for her. \u201cI can still run. I\u2019ve been given another chance for a reason,\u201d she said. This idea encouraged her to run her first marathon.<\/p>\n<p>She made her marathon debut on Nov. 7, 2010 in the New York City Marathon, only eight months after the surgery. \u201cInitially, let alone running, walking was an issue,\u201d said Okwiya. He knew it would be a big challenge for her. But he also knew her eagerness for running marathon and her remarkable resilience. So he thought, \u201cOK, we will take it one day at a time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After several months of training, Burla finished the New York City marathon and placed 18th in the race in the women&#8217;s group. Two years later, she set her personal record, 2:28:01, in the 2013 Amsterdam Marathon, finishing second among\u00a0 the women.<\/p>\n<p>Burla notes many parallels between cancer and running races. \u201cFocusing on what you can control, and staying positive and taking one thing at a time\u201d are the keys that help her get through them.<\/p>\n<p>Burla\u2019s winning performance in this year\u2019s Chicago Marathon only made her and Okwiya more determined. \u201cWe haven\u2019t been really pushing the envelope,\u201d he said. \u201dI know there is more to come.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For Burla, every single marathon teaches her something new. What she tries to do now is use all the strength she has to \u201cget through things in life, in normal training. And focus it towards the race.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"featurecaption\">Photo at top: Serena Burla crossing the finish line at the Chicago Marathon on Oct. 9, 2016. (Siyan (Jen) Huang\/ MEDILL)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Siyan (Jen) Huang Cancer, a relentless killer,\u00a0 gave hope to Serena Burla. Her cancer in her right hamstring brought her the courage and strength to run marathons. Burla, 34,\u00a0 was the first American woman to cross the finish line in the Bank of America Chicago Marathon on Oct. 9. With an overall rank of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":329,"featured_media":44244,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194,452,2941,28,29,31],"tags":[192],"class_list":["post-44225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-culture","category-beyond-chicago","category-fall-2016","category-general-interest","category-health-and-science","category-sports","tag-promo"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Chicago Marathon champion outruns cancer - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/chicago-marathon-champion-outruns-cancer\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Chicago Marathon champion outruns cancer - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Siyan (Jen) Huang Cancer, a relentless killer,\u00a0 gave hope to Serena Burla. Her cancer in her right hamstring brought her the courage and strength to run marathons. Burla, 34,\u00a0 was the first American woman to cross the finish line in the Bank of America Chicago Marathon on Oct. 9. 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