Photo courtesy of Diane Peterson
By Kim Constantinesco
Ask any Ironman competitor. Your training can be perfect, your diet impeccable, you can do all the “right” things. But, come race day, you’re still vulnerable to outside forces — a ferocious headwind, a nail penetrating a tire, or a current so strong that it threatens to carry you back to the airplane you flew in on.
That’s reality for endurance athletes. They’re used to preparing for the expected challenge with the things they can control, and they’re good at adapting and taming whatever beastly uncontrollable obstacles emerge along the way.
That’s why when Diane Peterson was diagnosed with breast cancer a day before her 48th birthday, she didn’t hang up her triathlon jersey. She pressed on.
In fact, against doctor’s orders she swam, peddled, and ran through surgery, chemo, and radiation. And yes, she even hit the podium along the way.
“It helped me deal with it better,” Peterson said of not changing her lifestyle. “When you’re able to do something that most people going through this wouldn’t think about doing, it boosts your confidence. It put me in a better mental state as I was going through the treatment.”
Photo courtesy of Diane Peterson
Running Fast Until….
Peterson, who has spent her into entire life living in the Chicago suburbs, played softball and tennis in high school. She never ran more than a couple of miles.
She went on to earn a degree in engineering and maintain a full-time position as a director of healthcare company. Then at 39, she decided to stay home and raise her two children.
With the shift in lifestyle, Peterson was encouraged by her two marathon-running friends to register and train for one. So, she signed up for Chicago and ran fast enough to qualify for Boston. Then things progressed. She bought a road bike and triathlon gear. Within two years, she was an IRONMAN finisher.
“What I love about the sport is your ability to challenge yourself,” Peterson said. “When you first start, you’re thinking, am I going to be able to finish this marathon or this IRONMAN? How am I going to get through the training? Then it becomes, I wonder if I could get faster. I wonder if I could improve my swim time. I wonder if I could place in my age group. Those types of things are exciting to me.”
Life was moving along swiftly. She even became a triathlon coach and trainer at The Fitness Pursuit, a local multi-sport training studio.
Then in May, she found a lump in the upper portion of her chest. Even with no history of breast cancer in her family, and as someone who went in for yearly checkups, Peterson still decided to get examined immediately.
An ultrasound led to and MRI and a biopsy. Everyone was convinced it was “just a cyst” at that point. The day of the biopsy rolled around, however, and that’s when concern took over.
“The doctor who did my biopsy had the bedside manner of a rock,” Peterson said. “He was horrible and wasn’t really saying anything. He took the sample, and I asked him, ‘Should I be concerned?’ He said, ‘You should be very concerned.’ At that point, the nurses were acting like I had cancer. I think it made the diagnosis easier because when I got the actual results phone call, I knew what was going on.”
Bracing And Then Racing
Photo courtesy of Diane Peterson
The diagnosis: Stage one breast cancer. She was told it wasn’t life-threatening and it was very treatable. However, she was also told that treatment would ruin her summer.
She had two IRONMANS on her race calendar. Instead of pulling up a wet suit and toeing the start line, she was going to be tying a hospital gown and kicking her feet up on the operating table.
But first? Just two more races before things really got underway. She did the Starved Rock Half Marathon, where she blazed the course in 1:34:22 to claim first place among women. Then she did the Raleigh half IRONMAN in 5:30:06 to take sixth in her age group.
“Did I really have cancer, I thought?”
With those races stoking the fire, Peterson was ready to get back to competing as soon as she could after surgery.
The tumor was less than two-centimeters, and after having five lymph nodes removed from her arm, doctors determined that the cancer had not spread. Great news. The bad news, at least in terms of her racing? Chemotherapy was still on the docket in order to lower her risk of recurrence.
During hospital visits, Peterson always wore her IRONMAN shirts because she felt like they gave her strength. Heidi, one of the “nurse navigators” (someone outside of the normal medical team that acts as an advocate and resource for the patient) took notice because her husband had done six IRONMANS.
“Immediately there was a connection between Heidi and I. She understood what made me tick, and what I wanted to get back to,” Peterson said. “Every time I was going through one of these procedures, I would ask my nurses, ‘Can I swim? Can I bike? When can I run? What kind of restrictions do I have?’ Nurses aren’t used to people like us. They say, you can’t swim for 30 days and you can’t do any strenuous lifting. You’re at risk for this or that. Heidi was one of the few people who understood me. In some cases, I’d tell her, ‘I swam today,’ and she’d just smile.”
After surgery, Peterson had a port inserted into her arm in preparation for three months of chemo. The problem with the port, aside from mobility issues, was there was a higher risk of infection, especially if you’re talking about doing open water swims.
Peterson after the Lake Zurcih Triathlon. Photo courtesy of Diane Peterson
So, what did Peterson do? She got in the water for the Lake Zurich Olympic Triathlon six days after receiving her port. She put a waterproof bandaid over it and went on to take first place in her age group.
Elephant On The Chest
During chemo, Peterson pushed herself to do something active every day. Treatments were three weeks a part and she came to recognize when in that cycle she wouldn’t feel good and when she would rebound.
As for her workouts, she had to adapt.
“What chemo did to my body was make my heart rate very high,” Peterson said. “Before, I could go out and run an 8-minute/mile and my heart rate would be in zone two. With chemo, I was in zone five at that same pace. You feel tired but it’s a different kind of tired. You feel like you have an elephant on your chest.”
Still, she did yet another triathlon — the IronGirl Sprint — in which she took second in her age group.
And, she continued swimming through her four weeks of radiation even though she was told she shouldn’t.
The physical and mental outlet was great for her, but it was her fitness community that offered her just as big a benefit.
“Being around the people I work with and train is very rewarding for me,” she said. “When I was going through my treatment, those people were my therapy. They didn’t care what I looked like. Attending my triathlon classes was the place where I felt comfortable wearing a hat and looking like a cancer patient. I could describe what was happening with my treatment. It was almost like an extended family in a way.”
Getting It ‘Back’
Peterson finished treatment in early November and she can already see her body “coming back.”
A celebration after she finished all of her treatments. Photo courtesy of Diane Peterson
“The frustrating part was the doctors and nurses didn’t know about my heart rate or how quickly I could get back to normal,” she said. “Some tell you it will be a year, some tell you two months. They’re not used to people wanting to exercise. My heart rate is coming down and my runs are speeding up. It’s kind of fun, like when you were a little kid just starting a new sport and you were making leaps and bounds. Every week, I get excited about something that I do workout wise.”
On tap for 2017 is a marathon in April, the Santa Rosa IRONMAN, and the Louisville IRONMAN among some smaller races. Plus, taming the “little devil” on her shoulder.
“You always have this little thing saying, ‘Well, maybe you should take it easy. You had cancer. Or, you might get cancer again.’ That’s the bad part,” she said.
There’s a good part, too.
“The positive is you enjoy things more. You want to do more things. You almost feel like you need to do those things sooner because you had cancer,” Peterson said. “You want to fight more for what you want to do. Cancer has made me more determined in life.”
And off she goes again.
