Memory moves mother, son to run Maryland Half Marathon in Maple Lawn

For 10 years Sandy Thomas had been running a 2-mile circuit most mornings around her North Laurel neighborhood of Hammond Village to stay physically fit, but in 2006 life handed her a detour.

Her husband, Jim, died that year from skin cancer, and the ranch-style home where they had lived for nearly 40 years and raised five kids suddenly seemed too big. So she sold the house in 2007 to her son, Mark Thomas, and moved to Hanover, Pa.

Sandy Thomas, who is fit and youthful at 71, continues to run in her new community. When Mark, 46, asked her to join him in the Maryland Half Marathon in Maple Lawn on Saturday, she figured it was a good way to check an item off her "bucket list" of things she wants to accomplish in life.

She will run in the 13.1-mile race in memory of her husband, and with her son literally at her side. The pair will run at her pace so they can cross the finish line together.

All proceeds from the half marathon, and the Maryland 5K race added this year, will benefit the University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Cancer Center in Baltimore for the sixth consecutive year.

"Our intention at first was to move the race to different jurisdictions because races run in the same place can get stale, no matter how great the venue," said Michael Greenebaum, co-founder and co-chairman of the race, which benefits the center named in his parents' honor.

"But we feel very much at home in Howard County and our intention is to stay," he said of the event, which was moved from Baltimore County to Fulton in 2011 and continues to draw between 1,700 and 2,000 entrants each year.

Greenebaum's mother is a 24-year breast cancer survivor who takes an aromatase inhibitor developed by a University of Maryland doctor, he said.

Her successful treatment is the reason behind his parents' $10 million gift to the University of Maryland Medical System and the University of Maryland School of Medicine nearly 20 years ago, he explained.

"One of the reasons we like it here in Maple Lawn is because this is a really health-conscious and progressive county," said Greenebaum, whose real estate company developed the planned community.

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Memory moves mother, son to run Maryland Half Marathon in Maple Lawn