When considering treatments for cancer, you want to hit it hard and wipe it out. Sometimes, if you don't get it right the first time, the second try at treatment finds you battling a cancer that has spread. ABC News John McKenzie ran a story Doctors Grapple with Lack of Volunteers that featured lung cancer patient John Ray facing a choice of a standard treatment or enrolling in a clinical trial to test two drugs that researchers believe might be successful for lung cancer treatment.

As Ray explained his choice by saying, "The standard treatment has had good success, and I just didn't want to risk not being able to have that."

According to researchers, for the more than 400 cancer drugs now in clinical trials, only three percent of cancer patients participate in cancer clinical trials. They state that the reason there are not higher numbers of cancer patient participants enrolled in clinical trials is because patients are simply not aware there is a clinical trial they could be enrolled in. Other reasons include risk and convenience.

I would have speculated that the number one reason more cancer patients are not enrolled in clinical trials, is that they make the same decision that Ray made, choosing a known treatment. Taking a chance on an unknown, at a moment when timing might mean everything, is life-threatening risky business. We all want better drugs and better treatments, but in the same spot, would you choose an experimental drug or a standard treatment to fight your cancer? It's a difficult choice.

Someone raced for the cure -- in celebration of me. I am honored and flattered and so thrilled to have received in the mail today a t-shirt and the crumpled piece of pink paper than hung from my aunt's back -- with my name on it -- as she ran this 5K race in Aspen, Colorado on July 15. It was the 16th annual Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in Aspen, and my aunt has run for me for two years now. I have a t-shirt and pink piece of paper from last year too. Maybe one day I will run it for myself. First, I have to master the whole running thing.

The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation Race for the Cure began in 1983 with 800 participants. Today the Komen Race for the Cure is the largest 5K event in the world. And in 2005, more than one million people participated in more than 100 races designed not only to raise funds but to also educate the public about early detection -- about how it is the most effective method of surviving this life-threatening disease. The five-year survival rate is 95 percent when the disease is discovered while still confined to the breast. I'm proud to have found my own lump early, before it had spread outside my breast. And I am proud to have been a part of a race -- even in name only -- that might make this early discovery possible for many more women to come.

There is still time to register, volunteer or donate for the Avon Walk For Breast Cancer which will take place in several cities across the United States -- Los Angeles, New York, Charlotte, Washington DC, Boston, Chicago, Denver, and San Francisco. This weekend walk that extends over two days and 39 miles will take place as soon as September 2006 in Los Angeles and as late as July 2007 in Denver. This walk, designed to benefit medically underserved women and men -- allowing them treatment they otherwise would not receive -- also funds research teams as they continue their quest for a cure. With Prevention magazine as the national sponsor and other official sponsors such as Reebok, the Avon Walk For Breast Cancer has made quite a mark already. This year's Chicago walk raised a record-breaking $8.2 million and tracked the steps of more than 3,500 participants. There is no better proof than this -- in my opinion -- that walking can make quite a difference.