‘She’s always on my shoulder’: Local mom to run her 50th marathon in honor of her daughter and raise money for cancer research

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) -- 1,310 -- that's how many official miles mom Carolyn McKann will have under her belt after finishing the Richmond Marathon on Saturday, Nov. 15. It'll be her 50th marathon, and her 15th in Richmond.

But McKann, 61, doesn’t just run for bragging rights. She does it in honor of her late daughter and to raise money for cancer research.  

“Richmond is honestly one of my favorite marathons," McKann said.  “I never imagined I would run 50."

Her first was the Marine Corps Marathon through Washington D.C. in 2002.  

“I got a card in the mail from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society saying, ‘We’ll train you to run a marathon and you just have to raise money, but we’ll provide coaches and training and a team.’ And I was like, that’s- it was always a dream of mine to run a marathon," she said.

The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society has since changed its name to Blood Cancer United.

After that first race, McKann was hooked.

“It was probably one of the high points of my life," she said.

But what she didn’t know was how leukemia would invade her life in the years to come.    

The year was 2013 and her daughter, Katie, was a sophomore at Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School.  

“She was my always happy kid, you know," McKann said. "She liked summer, she liked the beach, she liked wearing sandals, and she was always, kind of, the peacemaker too.”  

Katie, an avid softball player for the school, was hit with exhaustion at a time most teenagers have an abundance of energy. 

They took her to the doctor thinking it was mono. She was admitted that day after being diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia.  

She needed a bone marrow transplant to survive, a procedure that ultimately failed.  

“She said to me...‘Mom, why did this happen to me?’" McKann said, reflecting on walking through the hallways of the hospital with Katie. "What a question. I said, ‘Katie, if I knew why this happened, I would make sure that whatever caused it, you didn’t interact with whatever that was.'”  

She was going to get a second transplant but got graft-versus-host disease, went into septic shock and was put on a ventilator. 

After a year of fighting, 16-year-old Katie passed away on March 16, 2014.   

Katie was the middle of McKann's three daughters. Her oldest, Kerri Anderson, and Katie were only 20 months apart and were "like best friends." The youngest, Faith McKann, was also close to Katie even though she was just 5 when Katie passed.

Katie had always dreamed of going to Greece, so that's where McKann went, taking Kerri along with her.

“That was the first race that I ran in her memory," she said. “I miss Katie a lot. We all do.”  

McKann averages two marathons a year and has raised $50,000 for blood cancer research.  

“I could not have reached the monetary milestone without all my good friends that consistently all the time donate to my cause in memory of Katie and support me," she said. "That’s why I keep running.” 

On a bench on the side of McKann's house, "Optimism is the foundation of courage," is written in cursive along the front. McKann said Katie liked to look up an inspirational quote everyday and wrote it on a dry erase board. She eventually got too sick to do it, but that was the last quote she'd written down.  

She said she feels Katie with her every step of the 26.2 miles.  

“She’s always on my shoulder when I run my marathons. Yep, always," she said. “I think of all the things that she had to go through in treatment and how painful it was and how stressful it was. To me, running a marathon is not, it doesn’t even compare.” 

McKann follows a rigorous training schedule. She runs 3 miles, 4 days a week, takes Fridays off, and does a longer run on Saturdays with friends she’s met through the cancer society, ranging from 8 to 20 miles. She adds in weight training twice a week.

She isn't setting a time goal for the Richmond Marathon, but wants to take her time and take photos along the way. 

Her oldest daughter, Kerri, ran her first marathon in 2024 in New York City. McKann said she hopes they run one together. 

If you’d like to support the fundraiser, you can find it here.