Rick Chasse: running for his father’s life

By Elizabeth McNamara

        Every day Rick Chasse runs marathons.
        “I’m doing it for my father,” said Chasse, 43, about a daily jam-packed schedule and a six-day-a-week training regiment for the SBLI Falmouth Road Race August 14. 
         It’s Thursday August 5, and Chasse woke at 6 a.m., ran eight miles, and showered.  He plans to drive to Belmont by 10, where he works as town coordinator.  Then he will leave at three in the afternoon for his fulltime position as St. Joseph’s Catholic Church’s youth minister.  And before heading home to his wife Leslie, 42, and three-year-old daughter, Meredith, he will attend his last meeting for the Dana-Farber Running Team.
        His marathons are both figurative and literal. 

        But right now it’s 9 a.m. and an alert, grey-haired Chasse lounges on his front porch, not in sneakers, but in lightly tanned loafers, shorts and an ironed raspberry-colored polo shirt.  Next to him is an empty bowl of cereal, a full cup of coffee, and the morning paper.  He talks about how the Falmouth race is not the first marathon he will run, but how it’s his first marathon he will run to honor his father, who was diagnosed with penile cancer this past April.
         “So many people have died and so many are suffering from cancer,” said Chasse.  “That’s why I ran before.  But then I found that my dad was diagnosed I had a whole new cause to run.  The race became very personal.”
          But for Chasse, the race has always been personal.  He first ran in the 2000 Boston Marathon, for his childhood friend Patrick Mageary, who has since passed away from a cancerous brain tumor. 
         “I had always wanted to run the Boston Marathon, it was always a goal of mine; but I wasn’t a runner,” said Chasse, peering through his thin, silver-rimmed glasses in retrospect.  “And then all these people that were very close to me were dying of cancer.  So I decided to start running for them.” 
His decision came soon after another friend and a coworker each died of cancer. 
“When I’m running, every step I try to think of someone else that may be in their final treatment,” said Chasse gravely.  His sister-in-law has breast cancer and, after a six-year fight, doctors say she may not live through the month.  “This year we’re running for her; and we’ll always run for her.”
Chasse sees cancer as more than a blight effecting his immediate family and community; he sees it as an uphill run that needs attention, funding and support. 
And he’s almost at his personal summit. 
After his father’s diagnosis, Chasse set a personal goal to raise $5,000 for his run in this year’s Falmouth.   He just reached $4,500 with donations from over 100 friends and family members.
“It’s like my mother said to me the other night when my father was sick from the chemo, ‘No one should have to go through this.’  So when you think about what people endure during their treatment, it just keeps you going, keeps you from quitting,” he said of his efforts.  “It’s just sad, you know? And I’m healthy enough that I can run and that I can make a difference, at least a little bit.”
Last year’s Falmouth raised over $460,000 from 67 non-profit groups.  Dana-Farber, the team Chasse’s running with, was last year’s second-leading fundraiser with over $68,000 in donations. 
The race committee and its principle sponsor, Savings Bank Life Insurance, awards guaranteed entry to charities whose runners pledge to raise a minimum of $750. 
Since starting his marathons in 2000, Chasse has raised over $13,000. 
“Dana-Farber does a great job as far as cancer research, as far as their care for people – just the whole spirit of it is survival,” says Chasse. “Every little bit helps.  And, figuring I can run, I put that to use to help raise money.”
For training, Chasse has several routes planned for his morning training.  The course of each route depends on how far he wants to run.
“I have a four mile, a five mile, a six mile, a seven mile and an eight mile.  So that’s five routes,” he said, counting on his hands with long, systematic movements.  “I start at home and go up the avenue, turn and go up to Davis Square, go around there, then through Medford Square and around, up to Broadway and then back.  It works out well.”
This is his ninth year in Somerville; whereas his wife was born and raised in the very second-level , modest house the live Chasse family lives today. 
“I love Somerville because, well, I’m just a city guy,” Chasse said. “I love the area; I love Davis Square.  I love running around here; I always feel safe.”
Chasse, the third of seven children, has five other brothers and one sister: “Princess Pamela,” said Chasse with a squinting chuckle.  They were all born and raised in Lynn, Mass, and still live within a half-hour’s drive of Boston. 
“The network of my brothers and my sister has been the best,” said Chasse about his family’s involvement with his father’s care.  “We have to fight to drive my dad. I’ve been fortunate to be driving once a week.  I took him yesterday.
“Whatever he needs I’ll be there for him.”
Chasse’s father Raymond Chasse, 69, still lives with his wife, Patricia Chasse, 67, in Lynn.  He started five days of chemotherapy Monday at the Lahey Clinic and will endure six weeks of radiation before five more days of chemotherapy in late September.  Chasse says they’re trying to avoid performing surgery on his father, “while also trying to keep him alive.”
There have only been 15 reported cases of penile cancer like his father’s in the United States, said Chasse.  Internationally, the number only jumps to 58 cases. 
The Chasse family will know more about the severity of Ray’s case in eight weeks.  But already, doctors say his cancer is shrinking. 
His father has “a very positive attitude” about his diagnosis and treatment.  “He just has an incredible heart,” said Chasse. “He worked three jobs to support his kids.”  His father’s employment includes various jobs at Wonderland Dog Track, Suffolk Downs, and Essex Bank. “He provided us with a lot of opportunities.”
The 7-mile race, which Chasse’s getting “pretty fired-up for,” is fast approaching.  Forty people are on the Dana-Farber Running Team out of a total of over 10,000 runners. 
The first three miles are narrow, hilly, snaking roads, while the last four miles are level aside from a steep hill at the beginning of the last half of the mile.  Chasse describes that last mile as “just heartbreaking.” 
He said a lot of the race is mental: “At mile-4, I start asking myself, ‘Is it over yet?’  And I’m looking for the end.  So I start to think about why I’m running, why I’m training, what it all has to do with.  And then I just keep going.  You just keep flying.”
Because Chasse said he put more effort this year than any other year with both his training and his fundraising, he hopes to finish the race in under an hour and 10 minutes.
But, he says, in the end “it doesn’t matter what time you’ve finished.  That’s not what counts. 
“You’ve just done it: you’ve raised money; you feel good because you’ve helped other people; you’re a step closer to curing cancer and helped someone else out, given somebody else a chance.  Whatever: that’s what’s the great time.”

To make a donation to Rick Chasse’s Dana-Farber account, please go to www.jimmyfund.org/falmouth, scroll down and click “Support a Dana-Farber runner.”  On the following page, type “Richard Chasse” and “Somerville, MA” in the appropriate slots.