Cherry Fest 15K kicks off training for Cecchi

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Alana Cecchi Special to the Record-Eagle

July 13, 2012

Cherry Fest 15K kicks off training for Cecchi

TC native part of Team Ritter

BY MIKE ECKERT meckert@record-eagle.com The Record Eagle Fri Jul 13, 2012, 07:14 AM EDT

TRAVERSE CITY — The Cherry Festival 15K on Saturday is certainly a big enough race in its own right.

But for Alana Cecchi, it's the start of something even bigger.

Cecchi, a 2004 Traverse City West grad, was recently announced as one of 15 members of Team Ritter running in November's ING New York City Marathon.

Saturday's 15K, which Cecchi is running with her sister Erin, is essentially kicking off her marathon training.

"It'll be fun," Cecchi said. "It's so nice here and the weather's great. So I'm extremely excited for it."

Cecchi did her undergrad at Michigan State and went to Cincinnati for grad school. Now, she works at the University of Texas in Houston as a genetic counselor.

"At UT Houston, I work in the division of medical genetics," Cecchi said. "In that division, we run the John Ritter Research Program, which is focused on aortic disease. We obviously have a strong relationship with the John Ritter foundation and get a lot of support for that."

The foundation and research programs are both named after the "Three's Company" and "8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter" actor who died in 2003 from an undiagnosed aortic dissection.

That's Cecchi's field.

"Thoracic aortic aneurysm is an elargening, or ballooning of the aorta, the main vessel that comes out of the heart and pumps blood to the rest of the body," Cecchi said. "As you can imagine, if the aorta gets enlarged and balloons, it gets weaker and makes it more likely and predisposes it to tearing. When that aorta tears or ruptures, that becomes a life-threatening event. The deal is, as a genetic councilor, what we do is a lot of research and patient education."

Prevention and saving lives is important for Cecchi. And that — along with fundraising — is the key to running the marathon with Team Ritter, along with Ritter's son Tyler.

"The other marathon team members have either had aneurysms in the past, or parents of kids who have genetic conditions that are predisposed to aortic disease," Cecchi said. "I'm kind of like the UT John Ritter Research rep for the marathon team."

It will be Cecchi's first attempt at a marathon.

"This was a big thing," Cecchi said. "I've run before, but mainly for fun. My running max has been 15 miles here or there. But definitely never a marathon. The Ritter Foundation, thankfully though, is very supportive in helping us get trained. A lot of it's on me. There's no better way, in my mind, and I'm very capable, I just need to put in the work. It's important to me, so I said I'd do it."

No better way to get started than Saturday's 9.3-mile race in her hometown. And while Saturday's temps could be warm, it shouldn't be anything out of the ordinary from what Cecchi deals with in Texas.

"It's going to take some dedication," Cecchi said of her training. "In Houston, it's a little tough to run in the summer, but we'll make it work."