The fight that changed Eileen Nuñez’s life is now fueling her to the finish line of the New York City Marathon on Sunday.
“I’m already feeling like I did the hardest thing that I will ever have to do in my life,” Nuñez said. “And what’s 26 miles when I beat cancer?”
In March 2025, at just 34 years old, she was diagnosed with stage two triple-negative breast cancer, an aggressive form of the disease. Her diagnosis came 10 months after she lost her best friend, Liz Brown, to the same cancer.
“My only experience with breast cancer was unfortunately one that was fatal,” Nuñez said. “And so I really had to get out of that place where I felt that this was the end.”
Her treatment plan included chemo, immunotherapy and a double mastectomy. During the first three weeks of treatment, Nuñez got engaged to her boyfriend, PJ, and they married four weeks later.
In October 2025, Nuñez got the news she and her family had been praying for: She was in remission.
“I heard the words, ‘You’re in remission,’” Nuñez said. “I was like, OK, I want to live life. And I didn’t really know what living my life looked like in that moment. But I wanted to do challenging things.”
Soon after, Nuñez committed to training for the New York City Marathon while she was still completing the final stages of her treatment plan.
“I wanted to continue to live my life, and I also wanted to reclaim and reconnect with my body as well,” Nuñez said. “I wasn’t even able to run half a mile while I was going through chemo.”
Nuñez is running with The Pink Agenda, a breast cancer organization that funds cancer research and raises awareness of the disease. PJ, who supported her throughout her cancer treatment, will run alongside her for all 26.2 miles.
“I don’t know if I could have done it without him,” Nuñez said. “We just support each other in ways that we never imagined that we would have to support each other. And that just brings us closer together.”
Dr. Julie McGuinness, Nuñez’s oncologist at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, is also running the marathon. She said she’s inspired by her patient’s resilience.
“It’s really quite amazing, because I often tell patients that their cancer treatment is a marathon, not a sprint,” McGuinness said. “But most people are not going to take that and literally run a marathon afterwards.”
“I beat cancer,” Nuñez said. “There’s no doubt in my mind that I can do this, and that’s what’s going to carry me through.”