When Ella Harris, a New Jersey native now living on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, laced up her sneakers on a crisp November morning for the New York City Marathon, she was ready for the challenge, ready for the pain, and determined to run every step in honor of her grandfather, Ron, who passed from pancreatic cancer in 2022.
The autumn sun glinted off skyscrapers and cheering crowds, but for Ella, the race was more than the course. It was a journey of love, memory, and resilience: a way to keep her grandfather’s spirit close. His lessons, especially his mantra to “just have fun,” echoed with every mile, guiding her through the long hours and 26.2 miles. Running with Project Purple and connecting with the people around her gave her strength, and leaning into their support and energy felt like carrying her grandfather’s spirit forward with each step.
When Grief and Athletics Collided
Athletics had always been central to Ella Harris’s life, something she had carried with her since childhood. At Skidmore College, she spent four years fully immersed in sports, playing both volleyball in the fall and lacrosse in the spring. Competing in two demanding collegiate sports while pursuing her degree taught her discipline, resilience, and the value of teamwork. Athletics weren’t just a pastime: they were an outlet, a way to challenge herself both physically and mentally.
So when her grandfather, Ron—affectionately called Gramps—was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2021 following a summer of not feeling well, everything began to shift. And as his health declined in early 2022, Ella found herself in a rut. Watching him endure the effects of the disease and eventually enter hospice care, while she remained away at college, felt overwhelming and difficult to process. “I don’t think I even had a full understanding of how tragic a diagnosis with pancreatic cancer can be,” she recalled.
The joy she once found in sports waned, and at times, she considered stepping away entirely. “It was definitely affecting the way that I was playing,” she reflects, noting that it was shaping not only her performance, but also “the teammate that I was and the person that I was.” However, even in the midst of his illness, her grandfather encouraged her to keep going, filling her with joy and urging her to find enjoyment in everything she did. “That totally flipped the script for me,” she said. “I began to play for him.”
Ella’s grandfather was a constant source of support in her life, especially throughout her athletic journey. Growing up, he lived close by and made a consistent effort to stay involved in her world. Even when he was down in Florida for the winter months, that support never faded. “He would call me and ask me about every single game,” she shares, always wanting to hear how things went and stay connected to her performances.
After her grandfather’s passing in March 2022, only a few months after his diagnosis, Ella began writing the phrase ‘just have fun’ on her arm: his philosophy on how to go about life. She used it as a reminder to rediscover her love for sports and athletics.
“Grief has the power to isolate people, and I was letting that get to me,” Ella shares. Writing those words on her arm before every game became almost routine, a way to stay focused and not let the weight of grief take over her performance.
Finding Her Way Back to Sports
When Ella graduated from college in 2024, however, she felt like she had lost that structure and sense of outlet. “I definitely felt like I had lost such a large part of myself after being with my teammates every day,” she explains. “It was initially what had helped me get through my grief over my grandfather, or really any trouble that had come through my life.”
Because of this loss, she found herself searching for a new way to stay connected to athletics and the community that had once carried her through. That search eventually led her to the sport of running. She started by signing up for a 10K with some of her old lacrosse teammates, and from there it became almost a tradition.
She has done the 10K in Cow Harbor with her teammates for the past two years, and also completed a half marathon in Newport, Rhode Island, and another in Schenectady, New York, with them. “In the beginning, I was signing up with them for fun,” she says, “and then I fell in love with it.”
Those early runs with her teammates became a way to stay active and stay connected to the people she cared about, but she also found herself drawn to something bigger about the experience itself. “Just in general, the environment of a race was so fun for me,” she explains. “It felt like I was getting that thing that I needed.”
From there, the idea of taking on a bigger challenge began to form, and doing it individually for the first time as well. “I just started researching, and I said to myself, ‘Maybe I could run the New York City Marathon!’” Picking that race was no random choice. Ella had grown up in New Jersey, not far from the city, so she had always known about the New York City Marathon and how iconic it is.
She began looking for a charity partner to run with, and that’s when she came across Project Purple. It immediately stood out to her. “When I found it, she thought to herself, ‘This is the perfect place to do this kind of thing,’” she says. The main reason being that she could honor her grandfather and raise money for something that truly matters to her, especially since she saw firsthand how it affected her and her family. “It just felt like something that I needed to do,” Ella recalls.
Guided By His Words
That sense of purpose of wanting to do something for the broader community, also connects back to her grandfather and who he was as a person. “I felt like I wanted to do something to honor my grandfather and do something in his memory because he was so generous to me.”
Ella describes her grandfather as “such a light” in her life, someone who cared deeply about his family. “His grandchildren were one of his first priorities,” she says, and Ella felt that firsthand. His personality was especially memorable for his small quirks and funny expressions, like the specific vocabulary he would use in everyday life. Everything to him came with warmth and routine: two kisses every time they said goodbye, and always making sure there was chocolate licorice for the road. He was silly and fun, and truly “such a character.”
She carried that positive mindset from her grandfather into her training. “Playing college sports really gave me a bunch of resilience,” she explains. “I’m a competitive person, and I love to be challenged and pushed in an athletic way. There’s nothing like running 20 miles by yourself—that is extremely tough.”
Ella credits both her college athletic experience and her ability to turn grief into something positive for preparing her for the demands of marathon training. “That resilience is what I needed for those long runs and even the difficult training sessions,” she says.
Additionally, Ella shares that one of the last things her grandfather told her father was, “I think the meaning of life is to just have fun,” a message she carried with her, quite literally, into race day in New York City. As she had done during her college games, she wrote the phrase “just have fun” on her arm as a reminder throughout the marathon.
Ella shares that her “mind is always running,” but the phrase “just have fun” grounded her throughout the marathon. “Having it actually written on my hands and being able to look at it and see it there was great,” she says. She would constantly look down at her arm and repeat it to herself as a way to keep going.
She also recalls advice she received before the race: “When it gets tough during the race, just remember the person that you’re running for and why you’re doing this—how much that person truly means to you—and just keep pushing,” she says. “Having that reminder was perfect.” Especially toward the end of the race, Ella was struggling, especially around mile 22, but she kept going because of this reminder.
When she crossed the finish line, she was still in disbelief. “I’m not a runner, so I’m still in shock that I could do 26 miles,” she says. She had so many family members come out to cheer her on, along with friends and old teammates who showed up to support her. “It really was just such a wonderful moment for me,” she reflects, “but also to know that I was doing it for something that really matters.”
More Than A Race
In the aftermath of the race, Ella found herself reflecting not only on the miles she had run, but on everything that had brought her to that starting line. During her fundraising efforts, she was overwhelmed by the level of support she received. “My grandfather was such a loved person, so it really was no surprise,” she says.
She not only saw that support as a reflection of her grandfather, but it also reinforced what sports have always meant to her. “It really is about the community that you get and lifting up the people around you,” she explains. “So I’m really grateful for the community that I have.”
That sense of community carried through to race day itself. Being surrounded by the support system within Project Purple reminded her just how important that connection is. It was something she had experienced in college sports, and something she didn’t fully realize she was missing until she found it again. “Having a team of people is so important, and it’s really about leaning into them and lifting up the people around you and hearing their stories,” she says.
She recalls a moment from race day that has stayed with her ever since. “I was running with someone for the first four to six miles who was wearing a Project Purple singlet,” she says. “She was talking to me about her mom, and we were just cheering each other on and keeping each other going. It was amazing.”
The experience reaffirmed the power of shared purpose for her. When she was navigating the grief of losing her grandfather, she was part of a team where not everyone had the same experience with pancreatic cancer. “So that’s what makes Project Purple so wonderful,” she reflects.
Now pursuing a post-baccalaureate program at Columbia University and working at a pain management clinic, Ella is continuing to move toward a better future in medicine. She studied health and human physiological sciences at Skidmore, and she sees clear connections between her experience with Project Purple, her understanding of pancreatic cancer, and the kind of physician she hopes to become.
For Ella, a key part of that connection is research. “Medical research is just so important: it’s the only way forward in disease prevention,” she says. “Knowing that I was running for something that not only supported patients and patient care but also contributed to the future, really mattered to me. Maybe one day pancreatic cancer won’t be as devastating as it is now.”
That mission is what made doing it with Project Purple especially meaningful. Awareness also played a major role: something she admits she didn’t have much of before. “I wish that I had more knowledge about it at the time,” she says. “And I actually feel like I’ve learned a good amount about pancreatic cancer through just the team calls with Project Purple.”
She is currently applying to medical school, but Ella says she would love to take on an experience like this again in the future. Looking back on the experience as a whole, Ella says, “I would be so honored to do something like this again. To do this for someone that I loved so much, it meant everything to me. My grandpa was the glue of my family, such a friendly face to so many people. To do something so positive for someone who was so positive, it made so much sense. I feel really honored and proud to have been able to do it.”
If you’d like to run or participate in an event of your own for Project Purple, visit our events page.
