InVinceable

This blog has taken awhile. I've started and stopped several times. I wasn’t even sure I should write it because I feel like it’s not my story to write.

But the more people that learn about Vince DiCroce (visit http://andsoitbeginsagain.com to read his blog – and you should read his blog) and his courageous battle brain cancer, the more his story and his fight can inspire people like it has inspired me.

Vince had pacers for the race, but I'm pretty sure
he paced them more than the other way around.

I met Vince in 2006 when I first started with Runners Edge of the Rockies. He was fast, much faster than me. Sometimes he slowed down enough for me to run a mile or two with him, and he always had time to talk after runs for guidance or motivation.

At the time, I had never run a marathon. In fact, I don’t think I had run more than about seven miles.

Vince had run dozens of marathons, and soon after I met him, he completed his first of seven Ironman competitions. I didn’t know it at the time, but 29 of Vince’s marathons and all of his Ironman triathlons have come since he was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2004.

He never mentioned it to me, and clearly he did not let it define him. Over time, the tumor shrunk, and so did Vince’s race times.

Last November, Vince set a PR in every race he ran, including a blistering 3:03 at the Richmond Marathon.

But three days later, during a physical, doctors discovered that the tumors had returned. I’m not going to go into detail because he does so very well in his own blog, http://andsoitbeginsagain.com, which I highly recommend reading and following.

Vince writes very well about the biggest battle of his life. He wrote, “My friends in my running group (Runners Edge of the Rockies) are still in disbelief about the 3:03 and wondering how soon I will break that 3:00 barrier. Soon enough they will know that I am not Superman.”

Superman is the appropriate descriptor for Vince.

Many of us were shocked to learn about the diagnosis, but few of us were surprised to see Vince back out with us cranking out miles on Saturday mornings after he finished his first round of radiation.

Someone started a “Run with Vince” program, meant to encourage people to run a distance in the Colfax Marathon that was beyond their comfort zones. You know, if Vince can sign up for his first Ironman before he had ever done a triathlon of any distance, surely other people could go out and run a 10-miler, half marathon or even a marathon.

As the weeks went by earlier this year, I was fortunate to run with Vince three or four times during Saturday morning training runs, and it wasn’t long before I started questioning whether I could keep up with him.

I asked if he was planning to run any part of the Colfax Marathon, and he said he was thinking about doing the half. I encouraged him, but I had a sneaking suspicion he would not be running that race.

Vince (third from left) inspired a new look for a lot of members

of Runners Edge of the Rockies. This is a few of them.

By that time, about 200 of us had acquired “InVinceable” shirts to wear in support of Vince, and several of us shaved our heads to join Vince in his current look.

A few days before the race, I saw Vince at a party, and he confirmed what I had suspected.

He wasn’t going to run the half. He was going to run the full 26.2 miles, just like his wife and daughter, who both committed to run their first marathons.

On May 19, Vince and seven InVinceables crossed the finish line in 3:56. While it wasn’t the 3:03 he ran six months before, it was one of the most remarkable accomplishments I have ever witnessed. In sports or in life.

Vince may have written that he’s not Superman. I’m still not convinced.