Running as an escape

Brociner started running regularly in 1976, the same year her mother, Dorothy, died of breast cancer. “It all kind of goes together for me,” she said. “It clears my head — it’s just good for my body and my mind.”

In 1980, her sister, Eve Wilkowitz, went missing on a late-March evening while on her way home on a train from Penn Station to Oakdale. Her body was found a few days later, but today, 34 years later, the case remains unsolved. “She was on the Long Island Rail Road coming home, and never made it home,” Brociner said.

After that, it was just her and her father, Al, and Irene recalled becoming even more reluctant to talk about her symptoms, instead losing herself in running and gymnastics. “My life wasn’t about me,” she said. “I wanted to please my father and make sure I was the ‘good girl.’”

Team Challenge enables her to combine her two passions — finding a cure for Crohn’s, and running. She runs regularly with about 40 team members, including her daughter, meeting them every Saturday at Eisenhower Park for training. “Now I have friends who share the same disease, and you’re able to talk about it so openly and so casually,” she said. “It’s really changed my life.”

As part of the team, Brociner has run three half-marathons in Las Vegas, and last June, Dara joined her in one in Chicago. This July she is aiming to run the Napa to Sonoma Wine Country Half Marathon in California, but must raise money to qualify.

Team Challenge sends its runners to half-marathons instead of full marathons because the symptoms of Crohn’s disease make them more vulnerable to severe dehydration. Dave McGovern, a world-class runner who coaches the organization’s Long Island chapter and is the national coach for the entire program, has trained Brociner for four years. “She’s just very mentally tough,” said McGovern, who lives in Locust Valley. “Her internal strength is amazing. With everything that’s been thrown at her, she keeps coming back.”