Event Postponed
This event has been postponed from May 18, 2025. A new date has yet to be determined.
SSOD race (Stone Stairs of Death)
Start May 19 7am-9am
1/3 Mile loop paved road, cobblestone, and horribly uneven awkward stairs.
chip timed
Description: You will start midway on the stairs going up. Turn right onto Williamson St. Turn right on MLK BLVD, turn right on River St. then UP the SSOD. Then repeat.
You will only ever go up the stairs.
You may choose between 1 or 2 hours.
This is a charity event Hosted by Rough Runners R4R INC.
Male and Female overall awards for both races will be awarded.
Why would you ever want to do this?
SSOD race is held each year to help someone with medical or personal needs due to illness. Our running community is HUGE and this is a way to help those when they need a hand. This race requires incredible endurance and grit. If we could bottle that up and heal those that are sick then we'd probably never stop. But sadly it takes a lot more than that. 100% your registration- race costs and donations from this event goes to a family that medical expenses are causing or will cause hardship.
Unable to participate but would like to donate? you may donate in the store above or you can donate using PayPal under Rough Runners R4R INC
Hayden
Adam and Laura Gross have been a part of the run community for years, They moved to Savannah in 2018 with a big heart and a love for running. Adam's son, Hayden was diagnosed with cancer in October and has been continuously fighting since.
Until October 2023, Hayden Southard was a 22 years old healthy college kid. After he graduated from Islands HS in 2019 he took some time to enjoy running, playing the guitar and recording his own music. In 2022 he decided to move back to Portland, Oregon (where we had moved from) and attended college.Then in October 2023 he went to the hospital because he was short of breath.
They found blood clots in his lungs and immediately diagnosed him as having late stage cancer. They found it had already spread to his liver and bones, and he was expected to die soon after discovery. The cancer was genetically identified as being what is called ALK Positive. It's a genetic mutation that results in a very rare and very aggressive form of cancer. They estimate that 60,000 cases or so happen worldwide every year. (So 60,000 cases out of 8+ billion people).
What was fortunate is that there is a treatment called an ALK inhibitor. These medications are taken orally - so no need for chemotherapy. It's generally well tolerated so long as your liver and kidneys are still in good shape. When they work, they interrupt the reproduction of the ALK mutation, which stops the cancer from replicating. Like everything with cancer, they don't always work, but we desperately hope they do. In the meantime, he was put on a ventilator to prevent his lungs from giving out before the medicine had a chance to work.
He was very close to dying in November when he started treatment but the particular medication he started taking, Alectinib, seemed to work very well initially. He was removed from the ventilator three weeks after starting the medicine and his lung disease was visibly improving in his scans.
Unfortunately, the Alectinib seemed to help with his lung cancer, but not the cancer on his liver and in his spine. Those tumors stopped growing, but they did not recede like the ones in his lungs. Eventually the one on his liver blocked a bile duct.
This put him back in the hospital last month with liver failure. It also forced them to stop giving him his Alectinib while his liver recovered. Within two weeks his lungs were becoming diseased again. His liver has since recovered and they have changed his medication to Lorlatinib. These medications have a very high positive response rate in stopping the progression of the cancer. They have about a 50% chance of actually allowing the body to clear out existing tumors.
At this point, Hayden needs mechanical assistance to breathe. Stopping progression isn't enough, the tumors have to recede.The reason he needs assistance is that his lungs are not doing a good job of dispelling Co2. The gas exchange isn't happening.
But, he recovered quickly before and if this medication is the right genetic match for the cancer then he still has a shot at getting better. He will never be cured. That mutation is sitting in his body for the rest of his life waiting to pounce. However, new gene therapies are being created all the time and they are working on one for ALK.
Our hope is that soon he will recover from this setback, and be able to see an ALK specialist in California. Once he is well enough to travel, our goal is to bring him back to Savannah. Hayden’s "dying wish" back when we were all bracing for the worst, was to see Savannah and Tybee one last time.
Hopefully he can see it repeatedly in the future.
SSOD Course
Event's current local time: 5:08 PM ET
