After receiving a lung cancer diagnosis in 2009, at age 38, Tom Zangas did the unthinkable: he ran the New York City Marathon.
By that time, he had already undergone lung removal surgery and begun chemotherapy treatment.
“We thought the cancer was going to go into remission but unfortunately it spread,” said his father, Leonard, a Manhasset resident.
Two years after his diagnosis, Zangas died.
Leonard and his wife, Penelope, were shocked.
“He wasn’t a smoker; he was an avid runner who performed in half a dozen marathons and many triathlons,” Leonard Zangas said.
To honor Tom Zangas and his love of running, Leonard and Penelope decided to hold a yearly run in his name, he said.
At the time, he did not realize that the church, Archangel Michael in Port Washington, that he and Penelope attended had already been putting on an annual race for five years.
In 2012, the couple founded an organization called the Tom Zangas Memorial Cancer Foundation and partnered with the church for an annual run that has raised $250,000 for lung cancer research.
The couple has donated that money to the Lung Cancer Research Foundation and NYU Langone Medical Center, the latter of which gave Zangas treatment in his final days.
This year’s race will take place on Saturday at 9 a.m. at North Hempstead Beach Park in Port Washington.
Participants can walk one kilometer or run five. The entrance fee is $35, and the entire proceeds will go to lung cancer research.
“The foundation does not pay for run expenses,” Leonard said. “My wife and I do.”
For its first couple years, the race was held at Christopher Morley Park in Roslyn Estates.
Last year, the run moved to its current location in Port Washington, which Leonard described as “much better.”
Fundraising totals and turnout have increased each year, Leonard said.
“It’s very exhilarating. We’re celebrating Tom’s memory and his life,” he added. “And we feel like we’re doing something good for society.”
Born in 1971, Zangas received a bachelor’s degree from Hofstra University and a master’s in social work and psychology from New York University.
Soon after, he discovered his vocation as a clinical psychologist working with deaf patients.
He later received a doctorate in clinical psychology, specializing in deaf patients, from Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C.
Smoking contributes to 90 percent of lung cancer deaths among men, according to the American Lung Association.
Studies suggest that a genetic predisposition may make some nonsmokers more susceptible to the ailment than others. That research, however, is ongoing, Leonard Zangas said.
