In an emotional episode of her popular “Ali on the Run Show,” recorded on June 4 and released on June 6, podcaster Ali Feller announced that she has breast cancer.
Feller has become one of running’s highest-profile figures through her show, in which she interviews top runners and coaches and brings her characteristic humor and meticulous preparation to each conversation.
On this episode, Feller was alone and spoke directly to her listeners. At times, her voice wavered as she went through the story of how she discovered two lumps in her left breast. At other moments, she was in full-on raconteur mode.
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She was putting on a bathing suit to take her four-year-old daughter to a hotel swimming pool in Eugene, Oregon, days before the Eugene Marathon, when she first felt a lump. She later detected a second lump in the same breast.
“I have never been someone who uses the word ‘breast,’” she said. “I’ve always been someone who says ‘boob.’ That’s just always been my word of choice. And the word ‘breast’ always made me uncomfortable. Like, uh, breast? So formal. Now I say that word like 100 times a day. So, you know, we can grow, change, and evolve, can’t we?”
She went on to run the Eugene Marathon in 3:41:10, a personal best.
A mammogram a few days later, after she returned to her home in New Hampshire, revealed a third lump, this one in her right breast. After an ultrasound and a biopsy, she got a diagnosis: bilateral invasive ductal carcinoma.
Feller, who turned 38 last month and has been open with her struggles with Crohn’s disease, initially tried to get an appointment at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, at the suggestion of her radiologist. Her insurance company turned her down, and she is now being treated at the Dartmouth Cancer Center in New Hampshire.
She is scheduled for surgery in June and will undergo chemotherapy after that, although an exact course of treatment has not been determined.
“My surgeon is super optimistic,” Feller wrote in a text message to Runner’s World. “We got some good news last week, which is that nothing appears to have spread, and my lymph nodes look clear.”
She also wrote that the response from her listeners and social media followers has been “beautifully overwhelming.”
Olympic silver medalist Meb Keflezighi called when he heard the news. Keira D’Amato told Runner’s World, “I’m happy she is brave enough to share this journey with all of us, so we can all support her through it. Ali has given so much to our community. It’s time for our community to rise up and support her.”
Few people have done more than Feller to connect running’s masses with the elite side of the sport. Her live shows, held at major marathons, are usually sellouts. In an event in April before the Boston Marathon, held at a store on Newbury Street, Feller and D’Amato played Truth or Dare. The line to meet them after the show snaked around the store and barely budged.
“I don’t know if I would have found running in the same way without Ali,” D’Amato told Runner’s World. “I was listening to her podcast when I just started my running comeback and my only goal was to run a 5K without walking.” Years later, D’Amato would go on to set the American record in the marathon, running 2:19:12, until Emily Sisson broke it last October.
Sarah Lorge Butler is a writer and editor living in Eugene, Oregon, and her stories about the sport, its trends, and fascinating individuals have appeared in Runner’s World since 2005. She is the author of two popular fitness books, Run Your Butt Off! and Walk Your Butt Off!
