‘An unbelievable, great time’ for cancer survivors in race
Published: September 13, 2005
“My son said, ‘Well, I don’t know if I can keep up with you, Dad, and you’ve already been through a few things.’”
Daly, a veteran of two dozen marathons, admitted the event almost got the better of him.
“I finished the bike and thought, ‘Hmm, a marathon. I haven’t done a marathon in a long time. I wonder what this is going to be like,” he said.
“I just decided to run smart and try to finish and not blow up along the way.”
Daly, a consulting engineer turned cancer patient advocate, said he owes a lot to oncologist Dr. Mark Albertini at the UW Comprehensive Cancer Center.
“He’s been instrumental in literally saving my life,” Daly said. “Or at least continuing it.”
Brian Brophy, who was also profiled in the Saturday paper, discovered he had non-melanoma carcinoma after completing the 2003 Ironman Wisconsin in a competitive time of 10:48:15.
His skin cancer was not life-threatening, and he refers to it humorously as “an involuntary face-lift.”
Brophy, a defense attorney and former Dane County district attorney, finished the race in 11:35:56 and called Sunday “a very tough day.” He admitted he made a “rookie mistake” of not meeting his nutritional needs. He dropped his salt during the bike portion and didn’t go back to retrieve it.
“It’s something that you needed on a day like today,” he said, referring to the weather, which was in the lower 90s.
Like Daly, Brophy enjoyed getting to cross the finish line with his children, and his three daughters were there to run the final steps with him.
Although it was the slowest of his five Ironman finishes, Brophy revised his assessment a few minutes later, calling it a “good, hard day,” even “fun.”
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