About 30,000 people converged on Comerica Park for the 17th annual Komen Detroit Race for the Cure. The race raises more than $2 million for breast cancer treatment and research. Much of it will go to the Karmanos Cancer Institute, the presenting sponsor, to pay for local efforts.
Comerica Park’s lots were overflowing with pink: pink tents, the pink shirts of the more than 1,500 survivors in attendance, pink hats, pink flamingoes, pink spray paint in walkers’ hair, and pink scarves and pink foam ears handed out by sponsors Ford Motor Co. and Energizer, respectively.
Along the 5K run/walk route, 10,000 individually decorated pink ribbons were tied to railings and parking meters.
Steve Menoucik, 39, of Lansing won overall with a time of 15 minutes, 53 seconds; Promise Vos of Dearborn, 13, was the first female, at 19 minutes, 3 seconds. The first survivor to cross the line was Michele Hendrick, 38, of Bloomfield Hills, at 21 minutes, 15 seconds.
“It gives you a new perspective on everything,” said Amy Krzyzanowski, 39, of Plymouth. She ran the race as a survivor this year, just seven months after finishing chemotherapy and radiation treatments.
Krzyzanowski discovered her tumor doing a self-exam and saw her doctor about it exactly one year ago Saturday. The fifth-grade teacher at Holcomb Elementary in Detroit said doing the Race for the Cure last fall in Grand Rapids and then again in Detroit helped her work through her anger.
“I was really mad,” she said. “It keeps you from doing the things you want to do.”
She was joined by 30 to 40 friends and family members making up her team, “Amy’s Army.” Their tops proclaimed, “We fight for boobs!” a symbol of one thing that has changed in the fight against breast cancer over the years.
When the Komen Race for the Cure series started in Dallas some 25 years ago, it wasn’t allowed to say in mass media that it was to benefit breast cancer research. It was listed as benefitting a women’s disease, said Kimberly Simpson, chief operating officer of Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

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