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On Tuesday, the running world lost a good one. Gabriele Grunewald, a track champion, died of complications from cancer. She was 32.
Her cancer wasn’t a surprise. She was given a diagnosis of adenoid cystic carcinoma, a rare metastatic cancer, in 2009, while a senior in college. At first, she kept her condition and treatments she underwent while competing as a professional runner private, but then opened up about what she was going through.
“I’m a young adult with cancer,” Grunewald told The New York Times in 2017. “I don’t always love talking about it. It’s not a made-for-TV movie. It’s real. It’s scary.”
She started the Brave Like Gabe foundation to raise awareness for rare cancers and how little research is directed toward these diseases. It’s why everyone from USA Track & Field to the HGTV star Chip Gaines was tweeting with #bravelikegabe this week.
You can read her obituary here. Michael Powell, who wrote about Grunewald in 2017, also wrote a remembrance. I also recommend this Runner’s World piece, which was researched and written in the last year, but just posted this week.
Are you doing something this weekend to be #bravelikegabe? Let me know — I’m on Twitter @byjenamiller.
More Health and Fitness News From The Times
Gabriele Grunewald, Runner Who Chronicled Journey With Cancer, Dies at 32
Track Star Gabriele Grunewald Couldn’t Win This Race
Chemotherapy, Then the U.S. World Championships, for Gabriele Grunewald