Gamache’s Boston Marathon Run Aids Cancer Research

BOSTON, MA — In 2006, Sarah Gamache lost her father, James Higson, to pancreatic cancer weeks after his diagnosis, a fate Gamache’s Boston Marathon run aiding Dana Farber will help prevent.

“It was very fast. He was gone three weeks after he was diagnosed,” Gamache said. “So I don’t want anybody else to have to go through that,” Gamache said Sunday as she prepared for her first Boston Marathon.

Gamache, 40, nurse practitioner with Optum in Warwick, is also a Warwick resident and mom of three: Callan, 7, and fraternal twins Lachlan and October, 3. She’s been training with the Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge (DFMC), allowing her to run the Boston Marathon while raising critical funds to benefit the Claudia Adams Barr Program in Innovative Basic Cancer Research at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She’s raised more than $13,000 for cancer research on her own, and the team’s goal is to raise $7.85 million to help researchers end cancer.

Gamache and her husband, Kyle, lived in Cranston prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, when they learned they were having twins and thus had to quickly move out of their small home. They decided on Warwick to be closer to family. Kyle’s parents live in Warwick, and most of her family lives in Warwick.

“I basically grew up here,” Gamache said. They moved to Buttonwoods, “Which is just sort of a great neighborhood,” she said. It’s also close by Warwick City Park, which she has run multiple circuits around during her Marathon training runs during the week. On weekends, she’s run practice Marathons in Boston with the rest of the Dana Farber runners.

While this is her first Boston Marathon, it’s not the first marathon she’s run. She and Kyle ran a few marathons for fun, prior to having kids, she said. She prefers half marathons, actually, but always wanted to run the renowned Boston Marathon. Their growing family has kept her too busy to attempt such an ambitious challenge till recently, she said.

Gamache, whose work takes her throughout the state providing primary care, will spend Monday testing her endurance and crossing an item off her bucket list.

“I always wanted to run Boston,” she said.

Donors may contribute to Gamache’s fundraiser directly here.