Runners will relay 200 miles in 28 hours in honor of Clayton girl

[Simon Mutlu]

BAY AREA NEWS GROUP
Posted: 04/28/2009 03:04:13 PM PDT

By Doug Jastrow (Correspondent)

CLAYTON — Katie Grace Groebner is just 6, but she already knows what it's like to leave a home behind.

The Groebners left family, friends and everything they knew in Minnesota so Katie Grace could be closer to Stanford University Medical Center, where she's being treated for pulmonary hypertension, a rare and potentially fatal disease. The worst of her symptoms are kept at bay with medication, but Katie Grace needs a heart-lung transplant.
It's been a hard adjustment for the little girl, who suffers fainting spells after even the slightest bit of exercise.

"I miss the snow," she said. "And my cousins."

But this weekend, Katie Grace will have more than a few Bay Area supporters. More than 3,000 local athletes are running 200 miles in her honor in The Relay, a race that raises awareness and money to help the 100,000 Americans who are waiting for organs.

The 28-hour race, now in its 15th year, goes from Calistoga to Santa Cruz, navigating terrain as varied as a path cut through a cattle ranch to the Golden Gate Bridge. Organizers schedule the event to coincide with the full moon so competitors will have additional light as they run through the night.

Tiffany Deusebio of Danville, who ran the race in 2005, is back this year on one of four teams sponsored by the Danville-based Forward Motion Race Club. She knows the Relay can be both physically and mentally exhausting, but she and her teammates will look to Katie Grace for inspiration.

"Because we can see who the money is going for makes it all the more special," Deusebio said. "It brings it home a bit more."

The Forward Motion teams train together on Wednesday evenings, along with dozens of others, meeting for runs at Forward Motion Sports in downtown Danville.

They'll be competing against other runners from throughout the Bay Area, including Tony Dunnigan of Palo Alto, one of three competitors attempting to run all 200 miles. After hearing about Katie Grace, Dunnigan's wife, Angela, took their 7-year-old daughter Chloe to Clayton for a play date with Katie Grace while her husband was training.

Katie Grace's mother, Kathy Groebner, said she appreciates all that the athletes are doing to raise money for organ donor awareness. She and Katie Grace will be at the finish line Sunday to greet the competitors.

The organizers of the Relay, Organs R Us, have raised more than $25 million for organ donor awareness through running events since 1996. Kathy Groebner said she joined the organization so her family could do everything in their power to promote organ donation.
Groebner said her family members were already organ donors long before Katie Grace's diagnosis last year. Now the Groebners see organ donation from a new perspective.

"We were always for organ donation," Groebner said. "We just never knew it would affect us on this level."

Jeff Shapiro, volunteer director with Organs R Us, said few organ recipients could have predicted they would one day need a transplant.

"That's why people need to tell their families about what they would want if they became a potential organ donor," Shapiro said. "If everyone had that conversation, we would have more donors." To help the effort, each running team donates $600 to enter the race.
Groebner sees the attitude these competitors need to complete such a daunting task reflected in the eyes of her daughter, who has to wear a backpack that delivers medication through a catheter.

"She can't run or swim, but her personality won't let you know that," Groebner said of her daughter. "She just keeps doing until she can't."

The Relay

The Relay, a 200-mile footrace to raise awareness about organ donations, begins at 7 a.m. Saturday in downtown Calistoga and ends Sunday at Swanton Berry Farm in Davenport. For more information or to donate, visit www.therelay.com.