Fight against breast cancer to race into Raleigh

The annual race is organized by the Susan Komen Foundation to raise funds for breast cancer research, education, screening and treatment programs.

"The word 'cure' may eventually man prevention, preventing the disease altogether, which we hope happens," Komen founder Nancy Brinker said during  visit to Raleigh in April. "I see a time when that will happen."

This year's goal is to raise $2 million, and as of noon Friday, $1.5 million had been donated. The past 13 editions of the race raised more than $12 million.

The Komen Foundation distributes 75 percent of funds to local programs and 25 percent to national research.

The race will start and end at Meredith College and go along Hillsborough Street and area roads. Parking is not allowed on Meredith's campus, so participants are advised to arrive early to ride shuttle buses from the RBC Center.

Organizers stocked up on 40,000 donated water bottles to help runners endure summer heat. WRAL meteorologist Elizabeth Gardner predicted that temperatures will be around 70 degrees when the race starts and up to 80 degrees by the time when it ends.

Breast cancer survivors and friends and families of those who have fallen to the disease always have a significant presence at the race.

“I hope what we’ve been able to do is flower the entire field with the best kind of scientists, the best thoughts,” said Brinker, who lost her sister to breast cancer in 1980.

“Everything that you see, every advance that has been made in the treatment and the science of breast cancer has been funded somewhere in its history by a Susan G. Komen grant.”