This daughter is lacing up her sneakers and running toward something bigger than herself this fall. For Megan Glasebrook-McAloon, a 25-year-old native Chicagoan, the 2025 Chicago Half-Marathon is a heartfelt tribute to her father, Robert, whose life was taken too soon by pancreatic cancer. Through every mile, she will carry his legacy forward, hoping to make a difference for others facing this disease.
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From Pool to Pavement
For most of her life, Megan wasn’t a runner. In fact, she pretty much hated the activity. A competitive swimmer, she often jokes that swimming was the only sport where she didn’t have to be on land, and she liked it that way. “I barely did anything on land. I was always in a pool,” she says.
As a child, her dad signed her up for softball, as baseball was his favorite sport. Megan admits she wasn’t exactly the most focused player, though. “I would spin around in circles in the outfield picking flowers so I didn’t have to run,” she laughs.
But one day, almost on a whim, she signed up for the Hot Chocolate Run, a local 5K in Chicago, and something shifted. She found her rhythm—not in the water this time, but when she put on her running shoes.
“I always thought, if I can do a 5K, I can do a 10K. If I can do a 10K, I can do a half-marathon,” Megan says. “And I did the half.” That quiet determination soon led to a deep love of running.
“Through training, I fell in love with it,” Megan recalls. It became her way of de-stressing, and gave her the ability to “tune out the world and give my brain a break from the constant everything.”
She ended up completing the full Chicago Marathon in 2024 and has plans to do another in 2026. For now, her focus is on the Chicago Half and what it represents on a deeper level.
When a Diagnosis Changes Everything
Megan’s experience with the disease started just a few days before Christmas last year, when her father, Robert, was diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer after months of unexplained digestive issues and pain. He had always taken proactive steps for his health, but still, by the time a PET scan revealed the truth of his diagnosis, the cancer had unfortunately already spread.
Robert passed in May of this year, just a few months after his initial diagnosis. “It’s vicious. And it’s quick,” Megan says. “Even with going to the hospital or the ER or ImmediCare all the time, he still ended up with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer.”
Her dad, a longtime People’s Gas employee and proud union man, was a larger-than-life figure: funny, fiercely protective, and deeply loyal. “I always classified him as the fun parent,” Megan says. “He would take me to museums, and count airplanes with me in the sky. Even as I got older, he kept doing fun stuff with me.”
He loved the Cubs, Notre Dame football, but most of all, his daughter. “When he found out he was dying, he told me he was sorry for me,” Megan recounts. “He was so concerned about the fact that I was losing my dad, as opposed to the fact that he was losing his life.”
When asked what her favorite thing about her dad was, Megan doesn’t hesitate to say that it was his love and care for her. In his final days, she felt that love more deeply than ever. “Towards the end, especially towards his last moments, I got to see just how much he cared about me.”
Even as his condition worsened, Robert did everything he could to protect his daughter from the weight of the diagnosis. “Honestly, my dad was very protective of me,” Megan shares. “He would always tell me, ‘Oh, I’m fine,’ even though he wasn’t. He was very much still parenting me while he was sick and putting me first.”
Now, just months after losing him, Megan is channeling her grief into purpose as she trains for the Chicago Half-Marathon, running in honor of her dad and the love they shared, and to raise awareness for the disease that took him too soon.
A Daughter’s Love, A Father’s Legacy
Megan first learned about Project Purple after her father’s pancreatic cancer diagnosis. Ads for the charity’s virtual 5k began showing up on her social media feed, and something clicked. When she couldn’t participate in the event from the original ad, she decided to look for another one of the organization’s events. She ended up picking the 2025 Chicago Half-Marathon and applied to join the Project Purple team.
Her connection to both pancreatic cancer and running drove her to the non-profit. “It was a twofold of ‘Okay, this is a charity event that is going to get me a slot into a race I want to run, but also is raising money for a cause that I now really care about.’” She had previously run races for other charities, including the Ronald McDonald House, but this one was different. It hit close to home.
She signed up for the race while her father was still alive, but deep down, she knew he might not be there to see her cross the finish line. That only made her more determined to run for herself, for him, and those still fighting. “It will be a nice cathartic release to run the race and do the training, which arguably will make me feel better,” Megan says. For her, this half-marathon gives her something to pour her energy into while she is actively grieving.
Though she told her dad she was running a half-marathon, she never explicitly said it was for him and pancreatic cancer awareness. “He didn’t want pity,” she says. She didn’t put in “that pancreatic cancer layer” because, as she explains, “I tried to keep the majority of my conversations that we had focused on the good times, and trying to distract him from what was happening to him.”
Still, she knows that he was proud of her, even if he didn’t know the deeper connection she had to the race. “I went from the little girl who spun in circles and frustrated him at times to someone who willingly, for no reason other than my own regard, ran a marathon,” Megan says. “I could tell that he was proud, and I think he’s equally proud that I continued to run afterwards. So I think it’s going to be a good way to honor him.”
Grieving has been anything but linear for Megan. “I’ve been angry, I’ve been sad…even happy about him passing away,” she shares. “Because I saw how much pain he was in, I’m glad he’s out of pain.” She finds strength in running and in knowing she’s not alone. “There’s a whole community of young adults with parents who’ve had cancer,” she explains. “All your feelings are valid. Whatever you’re feeling is okay.”
When race day arrives, Megan will be laced up and ready, carrying her father’s memory with every step. “My dad would want me to be happy,” she says, “so I need to find those moments that make me happy.” And that, for her, is running. With every training run, every donation, and every conversation about the disease, she’s working to make a difference. “Even small testimonials like this raise awareness, and it will hopefully help someone down the line,” she says. “If one person sees something and decides to ask their doctor for a checkup or test, then it’s worth it.”
To support Megan and help raise awareness for pancreatic cancer, donate to her fundraising page here.
If you’d like to run or participate in an event of your own for Project Purple, visit our events page.
