One foot forward will be for Peg. The next step might be for Andrew. The one after that, and the hundreds - thousands - to follow will all be in memory of those touched by cancer.
Christopher Barry won’t know all their names, but they’ll be with him for Monday’s 112th running of the Boston Marathon nevertheless, each of the names affixed to shirt, shorts or firmly in his heart.
Barry, 28, is running Boston as part of the 19th annual Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge, which is expected to raise some $4.5 million for cancer research. Barry, a 2003 Keene State graduate, said he raised $6,838.06 as of Friday, and by Monday’s race expects to have more than $7,000 toward his $8,000 personal goal.
Barry said he wrote letters to everyone he knows explaining his role in the marathon challenge and asked respondents - with or without a donation - to provide names of cancer victims they’ve known. Those are the names Barry will wear on his T-shirt on Monday. Peg is for Peg Barry, Barry’s grandmother who died of breast cancer in the early ’90s. His friend, Andrew, died of testicular cancer at the age of 22 a few years ago.
“A few years after (my grandmother) died I saw how much it affected my grandfather who lost his life partner of all those years. It showed me just how deeply cancer affects not just the person who has it, but everyone else,” Barry said, explaining his inspiration behind running what will be his second marathon and his first in Boston.
“It’s easy to get up at 5:45 on a winter morning and get out and do the run. You have that little extra motivation and especially on the runs, when I get out I’m just so happy to be doing it and to be challenging myself. I think of a lot of the people who I’m running for who I know - and the people who I don’t know who I’ve been told about - and there’s a story for every one of them.”

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