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It’s a picturesque morning in Boulder, Colo., and three women have gathered at Boulder Creek to embark on a weekly walk. They smile as they sidle up to each other, old friends, grasping hands and chatting. They ask how each other is feeling, and update the others on the health of friends. They seem exhilarated to be out and walking this morning.

But these women aren’t just walking. They’re surviving. Dora Briegleb has been walking for seven years, in remission from breast cancer for nearly eight years. Viki Bergquist has also been in remission for eight years. Joan Yeash, the third member of this morning’s group, for five years.

Briegleb, at 52, is small and energetic, a sparkplug against the tall, athletic frames of 52-year-old Yeash, a lifelong runner, and Bergquist, 59, who has always been active in tennis, volleyball and water aerobics. “I think we were created to move,” Briegleb says as they set off down the Creek path. “The more you move the better off your body is.”

Briegleb, Bergquist and Yeash form just a small part of a 120-woman coalition of cancer survivors in the Boulder area, called Rocky Mountain Team Survivor, part of a larger national organization that started in Seattle in 1995. The original focus of the organization was to support cancer survivors participating in Danskin Triathlons. But members of Boulder’s RMTS do a lot more than just triathlons—they swing dance, rock climb, do yoga, even go on safari together. The group is founded on the idea that exercise is the best way to survive cancer, especially breast cancer.

Numerous recent medical studies have indeed proved this. In a 2005 American Medical Association study, researchers found that women who did at least four hours of moderate exercise per week—such as walking at an average pace—substantially reduced their risk of cancer recurrence.

The link between obesity and cancer risk is undeniable, says Dr. Fran Mason, a medical oncologist in Boulder who has been offering her expertise to RMTS for nearly seven years. Since exercise can play such an important role in controlling weight, it follows that more exercise will lessen your change of recurrence. Doctors also know that estrogen can promote the growth of some breast cancers, and exercise reduces estrogen levels in a woman’s body. “I don’t know how it works,” Briegleb says. “I just know that even if I don’t get to survive this, while I’m doing it, I feel better.”

“Exercise can help people recover from the impact of cancer therapy—there’s good science behind this now,” says Dr. Mason. As a self-proclaimed “wellness oncologist,” Dr. Mason has spent the last decade immersed in studies on the beneficial effects of exercise for cancer survivors. Mason talks about how weight-bearing workouts are great for restoring bone strength, a common weakness in cancer survivors. Exercise can also help boost the immune system, and ease the side effects of cancer treatments like fatigue and emotional stress.

Briegleb and her two walking partners are well-versed in the medical studies that prove that what they’re feeling is right on track. “If the pharmaceutical companies could bottle exercise and sell it, they would make millions. But it’s free to us, thank goodness,” she says.

In 2000, while Briegleb was undergoing treatment at the Rocky Mountain Cancer Clinic, she began walking with oncology nurse Mary Berg, who had recently started RMTS in Boulder.

A few months later Mary moved away from the group and asked Briegleb to take charge. Soon Briegleb was working hard to expand the available activities—all free—for her group of survivors. In her new role as volunteer program coordinator, she secured space from city recreation centers for aerobics classes, asked dance and yoga instructors to donate their time, and visited local clinics and support groups to let women know about the program.

Now, seven years later, Briegleb ’s group has grown significantly, as have their activities. Every Tuesday, between two and 13 women gather to walk. On Thursday nights they visit a sports medicine clinic to work after hours with physical therapists who donate their time. They offer weight-lifting classes and swim clinics. Each month they plan a hike, and participate in a new type of cardio/dance class called Nia. In the winter they snowshoe. These women have forged strong friendships through their common bond of survivorship, their love for exercise and because they have fun.

Their exercise regimes have sometimes turned into adventures, too. Briegleb and Bergquist and four other group members took a trip to St. John several years ago to go snorkeling. One year Briegleb went home to her native Greece and took six women with her to go hiking, swimming and touring for 10 days. Last year 13 of them went on safari in Africa. “We’re doing things that we never would have dreamed of prior to cancer,” says Briegleb.

Though the majority of women in RMTS are breast cancer survivors, other women in the group have survived colon, ovarian, appendiceal, cervical, and uterine cancers as well.

Sharing Experiences
“I always say, cancer was the best worst thing that ever happened to me. And I think that most us who have survived thus far would look back and say this was a blessing in disguise,” says Briegleb. “But you can’t say that to the people are first diagnosed and in the midst of pain and suffering and fear.”

What they can do, Yeash says, is let these people know that “when you come out of the other side of the tunnel, that there’s life over there, as a survivor.”

“Better life!” Briegleb adds. “For at least most of us. I had a good life before but now, my life is better in that I don’t take anything for granted.”

Though none of these three women are currently undergoing treatment, they say that conversations with others who are in treatment can be emotional. “When someone comes and joins for the first time, of course they have to tell their story,” says Yeash. “Usually everybody’s in tears.” They also spend a lot of time sharing their own experiences with newcomers, so that the newly diagnosed have plenty of information to work with when into comes to making their own decisions.

Yeash, affectionately known as “Curly” because her formerly stick-straight hair developed curls after her chemotherapy, first learned about RMTS in a newspaper article in 2003. Up to that point in her recovery, Yeash says “I didn’t want a support group. I didn’t want to sit around in a group and whine. I had plenty of that at home by myself.” But she was intrigued by the active part of RMTS. And after her first hike, she was hooked. “This seemed like a perfect fit. And it ended up being my lifeline.”

Briegleb feels strongly that exercise is a perfect medium through which to connect with other people going through similar experiences. “The benefit of the group is, we’ve walked in their shoes, and they can see us standing and walking and laughing and thriving. So they say, not only can I survive this, I can thrive in it,” she says.

It’s easy to see that Briegleb and other members of the group have forged some wonderful friendships. “It’s very rewarding, for the most part,” Briegleb says. What’s difficult, she says, is when one of your loved ones starts hurting again. “You ache for them, you hope for the best for them, you feel their pain, and you fear for your own future.” Briegleb emphasizes that it is often difficult to spend so much time with a group of people who are constantly carrying around the threat of death. “I’ve been to more funerals in the last few years than ever in my life,” she says.

But there is much to be grateful for as well. Now, those that are in remission talk about their husbands, their lives, their grandchildren. They cry and laugh with each other. Yeash, who went back to work two years after her treatment, said the loss of this camaraderie was awful. “I was sort of extricated from the group. I had to quit work so I could come back.”

As the three women near the end of their hour together, they begin talking about the rest of the week’s activities, and when they would see each other next. Briegleb picks up the pace, anxious to get to her next appointment. Suddenly a man rides by on the path, swerves, and crashes his bicycle. When they see the man lying there, unmoving, the three women—no strangers to crisis—jump into action. Yeash, an ER nurse, runs to the man’s side. Briegleb quickly gets on her phone to call 911, and stays on the line with the operator until the paramedics arrive.

Their treasured walk interrupted, the women are reminded once again of the fragility of life. Once help is there, they remove themselves from the scene quickly and move on. If they don’t need us, Briegleb says, let’s go. “We don’t need any more trauma in our lives.”

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