Sports

Touched by Cancer, Student Runs for Cancer Research

Matt Spring will run the Boston Marathon to raise money for the Dana Farber Institute.

According to the official Boston Marathon website, 22 people from Westborough have registered to run in the 2011 Boston Marathon. For the days leading up to the marathon, we will feature our Westborough marathoners and encourage you to cheer each of them to the finish line!

Name: Matt Spring 

Age: 20 

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Marathon Experience: This is Matt’s first marathon. The Bowdoin College student ran track while at . “Ironically, never anything about 400m,” he said. “I ran 21 miles two weeks ago and that felt great.” 

Reason for Running: Matt said that he became serious about running in his freshman year at college as a way to stay in shape. “Growing up in Massachusetts, I thought that the Boston Marathon was wicked cool and that I should run it one day,” he said. “I knew that I wanted the Boston Marathon as my first marathon when I ultimately decided that I was going to run one.” 

Find out what's happening in Westboroughwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Matt is running to raise money for Dana Farber as part of the Dana Farber Marathon Challenge. The charity touched him because of personal experience with cancer. Matt said his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer over two years ago, and she is doing well now. “After seeing what she went through, this motivated me to raise money for cancer research.” 

Training Tips: “Training for the marathon in the New England winter is very difficult. The cold weather and snow can get you down, but in the end it will all be worth it when you cross the finish line in April. Thinking about the end goal and positive visualizations definitely helped me to motivate myself when I didn’t want to go out into the cold and snow,” he said. “Also, anyone who runs in winter should buy a reflective vest so that cars can see you.”


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