Each year, thousands of women, men and children gather in City Park for Jodi’s Race for Awareness, the second largest ovarian cancer run/walk in the country. They wear teal (the color of ovarian cancer) accessories ─ including hats, tutus , feathers and capes ─ carry signs featuring the faces of loved one who have battled the disease and gather with friends and families in elaborately decorated tents that are part of Team Village. All are there to support the women who have battled ovarian cancer and to increase awareness of the disease, which is the deadliest gynecologic cancer and is most frequently diagnosed in women aged 60+. This year’s event will be held on June 11 at Denver’s City Park.
Judy Sherman and Nicki’s Circle JRA 2022
This year, Jodi’s Race is particularly important to the survivors. Due to COVID, the Race was held virtually in 2020 and scaled back in 2021. Because of fragile immune systems, many ovarian cancer survivors have been relatively isolated for the past two years. Jodi’s Race provides the opportunity for them to connect in person with women they have met through the virtual and telephone support groups hosted by the Colorado Ovarian Cancer Alliance and the family and friends who have been cheering them on from a distance.
For women like 67-year-old Diane Mock, who learned she had a recurrence of ovarian cancer in January of 2019, Jodi’s Race is about community. Mock marked the date for the 2021 Jodi’s Race on her calendar and used it as a goal during her treatment. When she arrived at City Park last June, she immediately felt supported by the many other women wearing teal, each of whom had gone through an experience similar to her own.
Judy Sherman (69), who attended her first Jodi’s Race in 2019 one month after completing her first round of chemotherapy, recalls the power of the beads. At the Race, each survivor is given a strand of teal or purple beads for every year of survival since their initial diagnosis. “I looked around and saw all these women with their necks draped in beads,” recalls Sherman. “I walked up to several and asked them if I could touch their beads for luck. It gave me such strength.”
In addition to offering hope and celebration, Jodi’s Race is both an educational event and a fundraiser for COCA. Because there is no screening test for ovarian cancer, it’s important for women to recognize the most common symptoms ─ bloating, pelvic or abdominal pain, difficulty eating or feeling full quickly, and urinary urgency or frequency. Any symptoms that continue for two weeks or more or recur frequently should be reported to a physician promptly. While the incidence of ovarian cancer increases after age 60, women can be diagnosed with the disease at any age. Funds raised through Jodi’s Race support COCA programs including support groups, individual counseling, financial assistance and navigation, an Ovarian Cancer Resource Guide, comfort kits, educational programs and much more.
About Jodi’s Race for Awareness
Jodi’s Race for Awareness was started in 2010 by Jodi Brammeier, a young wife and mother who believed her cancer would have been discovered earlier if she had known the symptoms of ovarian cancer. Jodi’s Race has raised more than $2 million to educate and assist Colorado women diagnosed with the disease. Although Brammeier lost her battle with ovarian cancer shortly after the inaugural race, her spirit lives on at the annual event that helps raise awareness so that other women might find their cancer earlier and stand a better chance to survive the disease. Online registration is available at www.jodisrace.org.
All money raised from Jodi’s Race remains in Colorado and funds initiatives that support women with ovarian cancer, including COCACares Financial Assistance, Nicki’s Circle Support Groups, the Ovarian Cancer Resource Guide, Comfort Kits for the newly diagnosed, Carol’s Wish Financial Navigation, an annual Raise Awareness campaign, and Survivors Teaching Students: Saving Women’s Lives®, a national program of the Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance (OCRA). More information about COCA and its programs is available at www.colo-ovariancancer.org.