Islanders Running the Marathon: Kara Walsh

On April 16, 2012, tens of thousands of runners will line up to run the 116^th Boston Marathon. Of those thousands, there will be people running from all over the world. Some will run for charity, some for the memory of others, some to beat their own record, some just because they want to see if they can.

Among those runners will most surely be Islanders. We will be profiling these Islanders leading up to the race - letting you know who is running, why they’re running and how you can keep track and cheer them on.

Our first profile is of Kara Walsh of Chilmark, who now lives and works in Boston.

Runner name: Kara Walsh

Age: 27

Profession: Social Worker 

Marathon experience: Ran first-ever marathon last year, 2011 Boston Marathon as part of the Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge Team (charitable team)

Reason for running: I'm running to raise money for cancer research In Memory of two very special people; my father, Tom "Dilly" Walsh who died in December 2009 and my "In Memory Partner" Lia DiFronzo who died October 2008. While I was working at the Jimmy Fund Clinic at Dana-Farber, Lia was a patient who passed away after battling cancer for a long time, and now I have the honor of running in her memory and supporting her family. Her brother Rico will run the last 1.2 miles with me to the finish! 

I miss my Dad every day, and always feel better when I give back to others, so since my father was my champion and beamed with pride over my work with pediatric cancer patients, I do this to make him proud and have him with me as I run. My site is http://www.runDFMC.org/2012/karaw

Training tip: Stick with your training plan and listen to your body- if you're having an off day don't push it running, do cross training instead. But do the long runs, the miles you log that day count more than the total miles you log that week.

Qualified runner or charity bib: #23465

Go Kara Go!!

If you know of other Islanders running in the Boston Marathon this year, please email me at Mathea.Morais@patch.com