Last year, cancer survivor Dan Bourquard missed the Rock ‘N Race that was first postponed and then held as a virtual event later in June due to COVID-19 concerns.
“I feel bad that I didn’t participate because, there were people who, regardless of COVID, still had cancer and needed help,” Bourquard said.
The race provides about half of the annual funding for programs and services at the resource center of the Concord Hospital’s Payson Center for Cancer Care, which supports more than 1,000 people a year.
This year, Bourquard and his team are determined to hit their goal of $2,500 to make up for lost time and money from last year’s race.
The Rock ‘N Race will be held this year in-person on May 22 at Memorial Field, with the option for people to do their own 5k virtually anytime during the month of May but things will look a little different. The deadline to sign up is May 1 or April 15 for those who are on a team and want a T-shirt.
Organizers plan to separate the run and the walk portion of the event for safety reasons and to lessen crowds. The run will start at about 8 a.m. with staggered start times. When runners sign up, they will be asked in the registration process to submit their running pace and then they will be notified what time to arrive.
Runners will be sent off a few at a time to ensure proper social distancing, starting with the faster runners. For the walk, organizers will stagger the walkers by their or their group’s name.
Participants will miss being at the State House and look forward to being back there in 2022, but Memorial Field will make social distancing much easier, said Susan Chase, the senior philanthropy officer at Concord Hospital Trust. They will also have live music and food in to-go containers.
Typically, 5,200 to 5,000 people participate each year in the Rock ‘N Race. Chase hopes that number will be the same. However, she expects many people to do the race virtually and she encourages anyone who does not feel safe to congregate to participate on their own.
Chase said people really came through last year when the pandemic meant that the in-person race was canceled.
“We know that the community will be there for cancer patients,” she said. “This year and I think our biggest challenge is letting people know that we’re actually doing it.” Last year she said they were lucky to have a donor offer a matching gift that helped them reach $300,000.
Chase said she is glad to be able to offer everyone an in-person option. They did a survey over the winter about what people would like to see and an overwhelming majority wanted to do something live. She said the state has good guidelines and there have been great road races that have happened throughout COVID-19, so the Rock ‘N Race should be no different.
Bourquard urged people to show up in whatever way they can this year. Beating cancer is already extremely, he said, but add a pandemic on top and it can be overwhelming. For cancer survivors like Bourquard, going through treatments while COVID is around adds additional risk and stress.
“There was absolutely no protection against any kind of infection that you would get or virus,” he said. “So, they’re extremely susceptible now to not only the cancer that they have, but then getting beat by a stupid virus.”
Since it started in 2002, the race – sponsored by Merrimack County Savings Bank – has raised more than $5 million.