6,500 Run to Aid Fight Against Breast Cancer : Health: The second annual ‘Race for the Cure’ around Fashion Island draws 2,500 more entrants than last year.

The biggest winners in the crowd of an estimated 6,500 runners and walkers here Sunday were not necessarily the first to cross the finish line.

Those with the most to celebrate were the 500 women runners wearing pink visors that distinguished them as survivors of breast cancer as they took part in the second annual “Race For The Cure,” sponsored by the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

For some of the women, the frightening initial diagnosis, surgery and therapy were just memories of bygone years. Others wore wigs and hats to cover heads still bald from rounds of chemotherapy and radiation.

“It means a lot to see the support,” said Melinda Nix, who has been cancer-free for three years. “I got teary-eyed.”

Nor were these women the only ones touched by the disease. Other racers, including men and children, wore signs that said they were running in honor of family members or friends with breast cancer--or in their memory.

Joining the event, which was organized by 600 volunteers, were more than 100 corporate-sponsored teams. Orange County government alone sent more than 365 runners to the race around Fashion Island that has grown into one of the largest in the county, with 2,500 more entrants than last year.

Among the runners was Francie Larrieu Smith , a five-time Olympian and 1992 U.S. Olympic flag bearer in Barcelona.

Dr. Dava Gerard, a San Clemente breast surgeon who had the idea of organizing the first Susan G. Komen foundation race in Orange County a year ago, said she hopes the event will make the public aware of the importance of early diagnosis of breast cancer and the need to fund research for a cure.

In the not too distant past, she said, breast cancer was spoken of in whispers and victims were invisible. “I have patients who had mothers with breast cancer who never left the house,” Gerard said.

“We looked away for years and years and people have died,” she said.

The cause of breast cancer is still unknown, and the incidence of the disease is increasing inexplicably. “It is an epidemic,” said M. A. Hancook, vice chairman of the Komen foundation’s national program for the Susan G. Komen foundation. “Twenty years ago, one in 20 women could expect to develop breast cancer, and today it is one in nine,” she said.

Gerard said the rate of breast cancer is especially high in Orange County, where it strikes one woman in seven during their lifetimes. According to the National Tumor Registry and the American Cancer Society, she said, 1,485 new cases of breast cancer have been diagnosed in Orange County so far this year.

An estimated 410 women will also die from the disease this year in Orange County.

In 1982, the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation was established in memory of a woman who died of breast cancer at age 36. The first Race For the Cure was held in Dallas in 1983 and has expanded to the 35 races held throughout the country this year. The events are expected to raise $3.5 million this year.

Gerard hugged a woman who walked toward her with a cane. “Cancer has spread to her brain and bones, and she will probably not survive until next year,” Gerard said. “For her it was a big deal to live long enough to come to this.”

Gerard stressed that it is vital for women to do self-examinations and receive regular checkups and mammograms because 90% of all breast cancers discovered in the early stages can be cured.

She estimated that Sunday’s race would raise $250,000 in pledges and entry fees, up from $218,000 last year. About a quarter of the money, she said, will go to fund national breast cancer research.

The remainder will be spent in Orange County to assist a new support group for children of breast cancer victims, called the Komen Kids, and to fund an early detection program for poor women.

Since the Komen foundation program was launched in March, Gerard said, breast cancer has been detected in six women, four of whom were able to have surgery before the cancer had spread into lymph nodes.

Rhea Werner, 52, of Laguna Beach, a spectator at Sunday’s race, said she was unemployed and without medical insurance when she want for a free Komen foundation breast screening and found an early cancer that led to a mastectomy a month ago.

“Doctors will not give you a 100% guarantee of cure. But we are fairly comfortable we have it all,” she said.

“A mammogram saved my life,” added Sandi Carter of Laguna Beach, 48, a cross-country running coach and mother of four children, who for the second year attained the best racing time among the breast cancer survivors in the women’s 5-K race.

“I don’t want my two daughters to go through this,” said Carter, who is celebrating her second year anniversary without cancer following a double mastectomy. Carter said she had breast reconstruction with saline implants two months ago.

Valerie Vaughan, a cross country coach at Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana and the winner of the women’s 5-K run, is not a cancer survivor but dedicated her victory to her friend and mentor, a marathon runner who died of cancer at the age of 27.

Others in the race were still fighting their battles with cancer. “I like to think I’m a survivor,” said Kathy Mansfield, 40, of Irvine, who was wearing a blond wig and walking in the rear of the 5-K pack. “I’m seven weeks into treatment. I had six weeks of chemotherapy, and now it is radiation.”

Diana Biera-Smith, 38, and her husband, Mike Smith, an athletic couple who normally would run in the 5-K, were participating in the mile walk. A walk was all Diana could endure Sunday, just a month after she underwent a bone marrow transplant and chemotherapy to halt a recurrence of cancer.

Two and a half years ago, she said, she had her breasts surgically removed, but later a lump developed in her chest.

Participating in the race is partly emotional therapy, Diana said. “It has been a real inspiration for us to know there are so many people who care.”