Brain Cancer, Marathons, 5Ks, and Kick Ass-ness

This is a quick story about some of my college buddies. One in particular.

Paul, Joe, Aaron, and Jamey at our college "prom" event in 2003.


2 of my groomsmen (Jamey and Brian) at prom with me. What the F*CK am I wearing?
(p.s. I'm wearing that same belt RIGHT NOW. Really. Ask my wife. That belt is at least 11 years old.)


Aaron was pretty upset the photo kiosk at Target wasn't working...

Fast forward many years to 2011.

Aaron has a seizure.

He finds out it's a tumor in his brain.

He was recently training for the TC Marathon and raising money for cancer research along the way, but his doctors told him he couldn't run it. And then this appeared on the local news a few days ago. Please take 2 minutes to watch it:


Direct Link

If you know Aaron, you can see bits of his goofball personality showing through in those few clips.

And our buddy Jamey is the one that helped put this "race" together. Amazing.

It was just back in 2009 that I was surprised to see Aaron running past near the end of the TC Marathon (I didn't know he was running it). I snapped these 2 photos of him and put them on Facebook:

Aaron commented "i was drunk on my own sweat, so i have no clue
what i was doing... great to see you stevie!"


Another college friend commented "aaron, i hope you caught Carrothead there in front of you."
Aaron replied: "not only did i catch him, but i robbed him of his fanny pack." Nice.

Best of luck, Aaron. I need to stop by and meet little Ralph. It's been too long.

At the surprise 5K with his family last weekend.

p.s. Aaron's wife is a kick-ass writer who likes to cuss. She has an amazingly personal and heartfelt blog called "My Husband's Tumor." Check it out.

p.p.s. Kare11 also did a super quick story on the 5K surprise race, but it's really short and much less personal than the KSTP one above. Check it out here.