THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, May 4, 1996 TAG: 9605040399
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PAUL CLANCY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 101 lines
In bright pink jacket and black tights, she might be mistaken for a road hazard flare.
Kas Lippa is striding along the shoulder of Little Creek Road, waving occasionally to passing motorists, feet beginning to swell. Step after step, mile after mile, this fitness buff, grandmother, Navy wife, boating enthusiast is in training for the walk of her life.
In the early evening of May 31 at Great Neck Middle School in Virginia Beach, about 170 teams from South Hampton Roads will begin a 24-hour ``Relay for Life.'' The teams of from 10 to 15 people will trade off as they cruise the track into the night, into the morning and afternoon of the next day.
The lady in pink is going nonstop.
She intends to keep on trekking for the entire 22 hours (two of the 24 will go to opening and closing ceremonies) or until she drops.
But judging from her stamina during a 14-hour training walk from Bay Point Marina in East Ocean View to Portsmouth and back, that doesn't seem very likely.
``I'm feeling pretty good for an old gal,'' she says as cars and trucks churn up dust beside the four-lane road shortly after 6 a.m. ``It's just doing it, you know? Get out there and do a little bit at a time.''
South Hampton Roads has one of the nation's most successful chapters in the society's annual walkathon. Last year it raised $289,000 - third best among hundreds of chapters nationwide.
``This year we're determined to be number one,'' says Di Ricks, head of logistics for the event.
Each of the teams has its method of fund-raising. Hillhaven Holmes Health Care is selling massages; the city of Virginia Beach charged a buck apiece to throw pies at local officials; the U.S. Customs Service is running a soccer camp for children.
The Bay Point Marina team, ``Sailing for Survival,'' is selling chances for $3 apiece on when Kas Lippa will collapse. Officially dubbed ``Kas's Krapout,'' the pool has 660 squares, one for every two minutes of the 22 hours.
Lippa's regimen includes four short walks and one long one each week. Last week she walked to Lynnhaven Mall and back; this week it was Portsmouth; next week it will be the Oceanfront.
Why is she putting herself through this? She's a personal fitness trainer but retired. Why not ease up a bit now that she is 54?
She digs through items in her waistpack: bandages, aspirin, shorts, cellular phone, water bottle, bagel, muscle cream, credit card. Here's the reason. A photograph of an attractive young woman, her husband Val's sister, Claire, who died of ovarian cancer at the age of 22.
``No one that young should have to die,'' she says.
``This is for Claire.''
The Relay for Life is held by all chapters of the American Cancer Society - there are 43 in Virginia - in the spring, many on that May 31-June 1 weekend. It is a 24-hour ``celebration of life'' dedicated to current and former cancer patients.
Teams can be from anywhere - companies, clubs, churches, schools, neighborhoods. Besides the 170 teams from South Hampton Roads, the Peninsula has 50 to 60 for its event. Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex and Isle of Wight also have relays.
The relay at Great Neck Middle School starts at 6 p.m. with opening ceremonies and the first lap around the track by cancer survivors. Then, at dusk, the stadium lights dim and hundreds of luminaries around the track, each in honor of someone who has battled cancer, are lit. After a period of silence and remembrance, the relay begins.
Throughout the relay, singers, dancers and bands perform. Each team has a ``campsite'' where participants gather and continue fund-raising events.
New teams can enter until the May 10 registration deadline.
``I love the different places around this city,'' she says, and does a modified hopscotch dance through a series of used tires outside a car shop.
``I hate taking maps. They're like leashes. I like finding surprises.''
She turns on Tidewater Drive and is immediately confronted by one, a truck attacking plants beside the road by spraying them with herbicide. The spraying quits as she passes. ``Wasn't that nice of them?'' she says.
Her portable phone rings. It's a radio station calling to do a live interview.
``Tell everybody if they see me out here in my pink jacket to remember to make a donation to the American Cancer Society,'' she says.
Passing Lafayette-Winona Middle School she gets an unintended compliment as a crossing guard holds traffic to let her pass.
She stops for coffee at Big Tony's Italian Restaurant, then heads for downtown Norfolk, rounding the corner at Brambleton Avenue shortly after 10 a.m., then heads down Granby Street toward the waterfront, where she'll board the ferry to Portsmouth.
Beside Town Point Park, a jogger passes.
``That's what I want to do - break out into a run,'' she says.
The life-and-death struggle against cancer is momentarily forgotten as she waves to a tugboat operator. ``Out here walking, you know, it's good to be alive.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo by RICHARD L. DUNSTON, The Virginian-Pilot
Kas Lippa, a fitness buff, grandmother, Navy wife, boating
enthusiast, is in training on Granby Street in downtown Norfolk
Thursday for the walk of her life May 31. The event at Great Neck
Middle School in Virginia Beach will raise money for the
life-and-death struggle against cancer.
by CNB