When Arnold Rosenberg takes the starting line at this Sunday's Falmouth Road Race, he will be embarking on his seventh straight running of the iconic event. Though an avid runner for decades, he came to the Road Race relatively late in life, not entering his first until he was 65 years old.
Rosenberg clearly remembers the experience that made him decide to give the Road Race a try. Living in Falmouth Heights, he and his wife, Susan, would watch each year's crop of runners on the homestretch. One year, he watched a friend approach the infamous hill that greets tired runners about a half mile from the finish line of the seven-mile course.
The man's expression, as he stared at the steep incline just ahead, struck Rosenberg profoundly. The runner knew what kind of challenge lay in front of him. His face registered weariness, apprehension, and, most strikingly, determination.
“I just sort of fell in love with the idea of doing that myself,” Rosenberg says.
There are plenty of other reasons to run, says Rosenberg. “It's fun. I like the feeling, the collegial atmosphere, of a race. The weather is your enemy, the hill is your enemy, but the people running with you are your friends. It's a transcendent experience.”
This year, Rosenberg will have another reason to run. He will be part of the team from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, helping to raise money for the world-renowned research and treatment center in Boston. Though initially reluctant to ask his friends for pledges, Rosenberg has been pleasantly surprised by the response. “They are shelling out magnificently,” he says.
The cause could not be closer to Rosenberg's heart. “We have access to this wonderful facility,” he says. “We have to support it so it's there for other people... It's just a fantastic place. I am really honored to be running wearing their uniform, so to speak.”
The Rosenbergs have had enough experience with Dana-Farber to judge. Last October, Susan was diagnosed with bilateral breast cancer, meaning the disease was present in both breasts.
In the months that followed, Susan Rosenberg beat her cancer, in part through the difficult decision to undergo a double mastectomy.
“I stepped to the side and let her make her own decision on her treatment,” Rosenberg says, adding that the doctors at Dana-Farber told he and his wife after the surgery that that decision had probably been the right one.
This year, Rosenberg has one more reason to run, one perhaps even more meaningful than his commitment to the men and women of Dana-Farber. The determination and inner strength he saw on his friend's face as he approached the hill years ago reminds him, in some small way, of his wife.
When Susan told him of the choice she'd made, she did so with a line from the Bible: “Therefore, choose life.” “When she said that to me,” Rosenberg says, “the emotion in her voice had a lot in common with the look on his face.”