‘There could be no finer recipient’: Cape Breton runner wins award amid cancer battle

A Cape Breton runner has won an award from the athletic community amidst a cancer battle.

When 2025 began for Trish Walsh of Sydney River, N.S., she couldn’t have imagined what the year would have in store.

In February, Walsh — who started running about 15 years ago — was diagnosed with breast cancer.

“When I got the diagnosis, I was training for the Fredericton Marathon,” the 68-year-old marathoner and CrossFit athlete recalled on Monday.

“Cancer took things from me, like my hair, but it wasn’t taking my lifestyle away.”

Through her treatment, Walsh kept showing up to local races and went to CrossFit three or four times a week.

“I didn’t stop,” Walsh said. “When you hear the word cancer, your world kind of stops but that (being active) was my world.”

Fast-forward to the fall, Walsh was nominated for an award called Barbarian Of The Year — handed out annually to the Cape Breton triathlon community’s best, or most inspiring, athlete.

When the votes were tallied on Dec. 17, she came out the winner.

“There weren’t many dry eyes around when she was making her acceptance speech,” said Cape Breton Road Runners committee member Steve MacNeil. “Every person in the room acknowledged that there could be no finer recipient this year.”

Walsh’s acceptance speech has been widely shared online among her friends and fitness colleagues.

“Some people say that I’m an inspiration, because I ran through my chemo and my surgery and now radiation,” Walsh said in the video posted to Facebook. “I do have red hair. It’s not coming back anytime soon, but it makes me stubborn, and I wanted to keep going through this whole journey.”

Walsh finished radiation on Dec. 22. She hopes to be done with the rest of her treatment by the spring. For now, she plans to keep going with a mantra she has borrowed from a Bon Jovi song.

“‘I just want to live while I’m alive,’ and that’s the way I’ve been going forward with this,” Walsh said.

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