Orin Gor­don

Thou­sands of run­ners decked out in pink–the colour as­so­ci­at­ed with rais­ing aware­ness of breast can­cer and ho­n­our­ing its sur­vivors–took to the streets around the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah and St Clair yes­ter­day af­ter­noon for the 25th run­ning of the Sco­tia­bank Women Against Breast Can­cer 5k race.

Race or­gan­is­ers al­so catered to men will­ing to sup­port the cause, al­beit in small­er num­bers than women. Of the 5,000 peo­ple who reg­is­tered for the run, there was space al­lo­ca­tion for 500 men and 4,500 women.

Strong rain­fall ear­li­er in the day had threat­ened to af­fect turnout, but the event was blessed with glo­ri­ous sun­shine once it start­ed at 4 pm. Sup­port held strong for one of the most high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed runs of the race sea­son.

The scourge of breast can­cer

The most re­cent up­date from the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO) on the preva­lence of breast can­cer world­wide was in Au­gust 2025, two months ago. The last year cit­ed in that up­date was 2022, when there were an es­ti­mat­ed 2.3 mil­lion women di­ag­nosed with breast can­cer and 670,000 deaths glob­al­ly.

The WHO stat­ed that breast can­cer oc­curs in every coun­try of the world in women at any age af­ter pu­ber­ty, but with in­creas­ing rates in lat­er life. Fur­ther, rates of breast can­cer are re­lat­ed to the de­vel­op­ment lev­el of coun­tries.

“In coun­tries with a very high Hu­man De­vel­op­ment In­dex (HDI), one in 12 women will be di­ag­nosed with breast can­cer in their life­time. In coun­tries with a low HDI, on­ly one in 27 women is di­ag­nosed.”

What breast can­cer is

Breast can­cer is the un­con­trolled growth of ab­nor­mal breast cells. This leads to tu­mours. If left unchecked, they can spread and be­come fa­tal. Breast can­cer cells be­gin in­side sec­tions of the breast that pro­duce milk. The ear­li­est form is not life-threat­en­ing, so ear­ly de­tec­tion is key. Can­cer cells can spread in­to near­by breast tis­sue. This cre­ates tu­mours that cause lumps. In­va­sive can­cers can spread (metas­ta­sise) to lymph nodes or or­gans. Metas­ta­sis is the point at which breast can­cer can be life-threat­en­ing and fa­tal. Treat­ment com­bines surgery, ra­di­a­tion ther­a­py, and med­ica­tions.

The sur­vivors

At yes­ter­day’s race was a group of women who have formed a net­work of breast can­cer sur­vivors. Sun­day Guardian spoke to a cou­ple of them af­ter the race. Car­la Thomas, 53, was di­ag­nosed with breast can­cer 12 years ago. Like most women who hear the news, she was dev­as­tat­ed. She had to have ra­di­a­tion and chemother­a­py treat­ment, as well as a mas­tec­to­my–the sur­gi­cal re­moval of one of her breasts. Thomas says every time she does a 5k breast can­cer run, she feels that she is beat­ing the dis­ease.

Cher­ryl Perez, 72, was di­ag­nosed 16 years ago. She cried all night when she heard the news–and hes­i­tat­ed to tell her teenage son. She cut a fig­ure of cheer­ful hap­pi­ness af­ter the race. Chemo and ra­di­a­tion treat­ment were in­tense. “I lost all my hair,” she said, “but that is no big thing.” She’s hap­py to be alive and hap­py to be run­ning.