Run Your Story Podcast · Allison Gaillard

Susan Hilton and Brenda Elliff - "There's never an empty finish line"

·1 hr 26 min·5 clips

Susan says a Christmas mammogram call led to “you have breast cancer” and an immediate “what do I do?”

1. Run Your Story Podcast centers this conversation with Susan Hilton and Brenda Elliff on running, walking, and breast-cancer survivorship. 2. Allison Gillyard hosts Susan Hilton and Brenda Elliff and frames them as longtime friends, race regulars, and members of the Exercise Warriors and Swag Warriors. 3. The episode asks what running, walking, and community do for people facing illness, aging, and everyday stress. 4. Brenda says she began running in Houston in the mid-1970s with a friend from Brewton, Alabama, so they could meet men at Memorial Park. 5. Brenda quit after about three weeks, then kept returning to walking events in the San Francisco Bay Area and later in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. 6. Brenda describes joining Bloomsday, the largest timed run-walk in the United States, and wearing costumes when “people are not dressed up.” 7. Susan says she ran in the mid-1970s in Savannah while going through divorce, raising two boys, and working as a stockbroker. 8. Susan says running functioned as “therapy” for her, and her eight-year-old son began racing with her and is still running at age 55. 9. Susan describes coaching cross-country and track at Lugoff, South Carolina, and Morgan Academy in Selma, Alabama, including sprinting, relays, and distance training. 10. Susan says the girls at Morgan Academy won state, and she jokes that she could not do hurdles because she would “fall flat on my face.” 11. Susan says a Christmas mammogram callback in Portland led to a diagnosis of invasive ductal carcinoma. 12. Susan says a radiology tech connected her to a nurse navigator, who arranged surgeons, an oncologist, and a plastic surgeon within two weeks. 13. Susan says she chose a mastectomy within two and a half weeks and returned to work in six weeks while still dealing with chemo. 14. Susan says her first half marathon after treatment took 2:11 even though she had “basically without hair” at the time. 15. Susan says she now walks the three-day, 60-mile breast-cancer event and notes that the schedule includes 22 miles, 20 miles, and 16 miles. 16. Susan says her best friend, who had breast cancer 26 years earlier and later lung cancer linked to radiation, kept traveling, kayaking, and camping until shortly before her death. 17. The tone is warm, chatty, and full of laughter, with both women interrupting each other and trading stories about races, costumes, and finish lines. 18. The format is a two-guest interview with a long free-flowing conversation, race anecdotes, and several practical reflections on health, pacing, and support. 19. Best for runners, walkers, and breast-cancer survivors. 20. Skip if you want tightly edited, topic-specific audio.

As heard by us

A survivor story that treats friendship, movement, and community like the same finish line.

Susan and Brenda's conversation lands where friendship, breast cancer, and plain old staying in motion meet. It works best when it stays close to Susan's story and the way Bras Across the Causeway, friends, and the surrounding community hold that story up.

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Why you'd press play

Press play for a warm, community-minded story of breast cancer, friendship, and staying active.

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