Christine Fischer followed her professional runner husband Reed FischerRun many marathon races.

“No offense to Reed, but his races never inspired me to run a marathon,” Christine, 30, says, laughing alongside Reed in a recent interview with PEOPLE.

Then something changed at last year’s TCS New York City Marathon (NYCM). Christine usually shows up at races just to watch Reed, 29, complete the 26.2-mile course in about 2 hours and 15 minutes (finishing 10th overall in the 2022 race), and then heads out with her for press conferences and downtime. But in 2023, Reed dropped out of the race around mile 14, which meant Christine was able to hang out and watch runners of all speeds cross the finish line for the first time.

“Watching them succeed was so inspiring,” he says. “This is actually what sparked my interest in running marathons. And I said, ‘You know what? Maybe I want to run!’ ”

An elite runner herself, Christine is far from your average hobby runner. But as a fifth-grade teacher in Boulder, Colo., who was diagnosed with Stage 4 oligometastatic breast cancer in early 2023, Christine said watching thousands of people with stories she didn’t know during last year’s marathon helped her see life’s challenges. Competing through a different lens, with a view toward “joy-centered” education.

On Sunday, November 3, Join 49 other educators She was selected by NYCM’s title sponsor, Tata Consultancy Services, to run 26.2 miles in New York. Team TCS Teachers.

“When I line up in New York, I will spend about two years in diagnosis and treatment,” says Christine. “And now I’m looking at planning my life ahead.”

Christine was diagnosed with breast cancer on January 10, 2023, after she noticed a 3.5 centimeter lump in her breasts while wearing her sports bra for a run. By then the cancer had spread to his spine and coccyx area.

One INTERVIEW WITH PEOPLE Last year Christine said she felt a “loss of control” following the diagnosis.

The couple, who got married in 2021, wanted to start a family. But after his diagnosis, future plans seemed to belong to someone else.

Christine began googling potential clients and the prospects looked bleak. He read posts online that predicted he would live another one to three years at most.

She quickly began chemotherapy, using painful cooling caps designed to cause hypothermia on the scalp to hold her hair through the process. He also continued to run, sometimes even half a mile.

After nearly two years — he’s now on a daily pill with monthly hormone therapy injections and bone-strengthening injections every three months, as well as routine scans and blood work — there’s no evidence of cancer in his body, but Stage 4 patients are no longer on par with doctors using the term “Remission.” avoid.

Although it’s impossible to know the future, the couple is still planning.

Christine froze her eggs before starting treatment, and with indefinite future cancer treatment making it impossible to have children safely, the couple began trying to find a surrogate mother.

They also began filling their schedules with epic adventures. In June, Christine and Reed traveled to Peru to hike Machu Picchu during the Winter Solstice.

And this school year, Christine, who played basketball in college, is coaching the fifth- through eighth-grade girls team at Boulder Country Day School.

Teaching 10- and 11-year-olds and coaching the middle school team is about giving them the opportunity to “try something new in a safe environment,” he says. “And maybe they fail, they try again and eventually succeed — or they take all the lessons they learned from those failures, and that’s just as important.”

When TCS and Reed stopped by her classroom last May and made the surprise announcement that Christine had been chosen to run New York, their students became part of Christine’s marathon story that pushed her to her limits.

In the months that followed, Reed, who would cheer him on along the route and “ready to give him a big, sweaty hug and kiss” on November 3, wrote a training program that coached him on long runs and bike rides. next to him.

Recalling that going through chemotherapy was “the greatest blessing I’ve ever given myself,” Christine says she brings the same compassion to her marathon.

He says his education was about “being proud of where I am now.” “Because a year ago I wasn’t here and two years ago I never would have thought this could be a reality for me right now.”

Come race day, he wants to “be there in the moment and celebrate all the work we’ve done.”

However, she has a big goal: She wants to qualify for the Boston Marathon by walking across New York in under three hours and 25 minutes.

Running 26.2 miles across New York’s five boroughs will be her chance to take back control and “challenge my body and my mind in a way I’ve never been challenged before” while “celebrating what my body can do.”

“With each mile, I want to acknowledge and celebrate where I am,” she says. “And this is the result of the hard work of me, my doctor, and my community to get me back on my feet.”

“I’ll be center stage in this cheerful place at the starting line,” says Christine. “Because two years ago Google was telling me: maybe he wouldn’t be on this planet right now. But not only am I on this planet, I’m also running a marathon. And I plan to be on this planet for a long time. So when things get tough, it reminds me that I’ve been through tough things and that I can continue to get through those challenges. This is a victory lap.”