The bedside clock in the intensive care unit read 2:15, but BethAnn Telford couldn’t tell if it was morning or night. She had awoken after undergoing surgery on a brain tumor, alone and restrained to a hospital bed.
“All I could do was watch that clock, and that third hand — tick, tick. I’ll never forget that,” she said. “I knew after all those hours watching the clock, there’s no way I can live like this.” A competitive athlete for years, Telford, 40, was unwilling to resign her life when she was diagnosed with brain cancer and underwent surgery in 2005. She was determined to not only to learn how to walk, talk, and move again — but also to compete again. Just six weeks after her surgery, she ran a 5K (three miles) through the streets of Camp Hill, Pa. Now, five yearsafter her diagnosis, she has competed in numerous races and is preparing to run in the famed Boston Marathon April 19. But her comeback hasn’t been without challenges. Telford walks with a cane after a recent operation, is blind in one eye, and had her bladder removed because of her illness. Still, she completes all of her training sessions and races with a partner, who is sometimes tethered to her for safety reasons. Telford, who moved to the Fairfax area seven years ago, is driven to keep pushing herself when she thinks about others who have undergone similar struggles. “I’ve lost lots of friends. My cousin I lost in three days to a brain tumor,” she said. She draws inspiration from working with cancer patient advocacy groups, and raised more than $52,000 for during the Race for Hope in 2009. Her thoughts were with these other cancer patients when she took on one of her most intense physical challenges two years ago: the 2008 Lake Placid Ironman in New York, a triathlon that includes a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike and a 26.2-mile run. “I just had to keep thinking about the people who couldn’t do it … [such as] one little boy who has an inoperable brain tumor. Those people aren’t going to make it,” she said. At the starting line for the Ironman, surrounded by expert athletes with professional trainers, Telford said she began to doubt herself. “But then when the gun went off, it was just like, OK, let’s take one thing at a time.” At the starting line for the Ironman, surrounded by expert athletes with professional trainers, Telford said she began to doubt herself. “But then when the gun went off, it was just like, OK, let’s take one thing at a time.” She completed the race in 14 hours, 33 minutes and 46 secondsand her parents were waiting for her at the finish line. “[The announcer said] ‘BethAnn Telford, you are an Ironman,’ ” she recalled. “I can still remember the song that was playing … and [I was] going around the Olympic oval. And it was just as if I had just started a 50-meter run. I didn’t feel anything.” Telford wakes up at 4 a.m. every day, and works out until she goes to her job at the Government Printing Office at 8:30 a.m. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays she does aerobic exercisesand on Tuesdays she goes to a spin class with a friend. When she’s preparing for a race, she also trains in the evenings and swims on the weekends. One of Telford’s goals has been to compete in the Boston Marathon, but after qualifying for the race in the fall she discovered that it had filled the night before. She was devastated. Several weeks later, she received a call from the Boston Marathon informing her that she would be competing. Telford was ecstatic and asked the representative if she could tell him her story. He told her he already had her story on his desk — in e-mails, letters and packets sent in by her area friends.
