This 76-year-old has run 100 marathons, 99 since being diagnosed with cancer. Now he's training for No. 101

It would seem to be enough that the marathon runner was also a cancer patient. That he is 76 years old would seem to be pushing the remarkable meter a bit.

Yet there stood Don Wright on Sunday, holding a first-place medal for his age group after completing the Shamrock 10K in Phoenix on Sunday. He considered the run training for a marathon he hopes to run in the summer, which would be his 101st since being diagnosed with incurable cancer.

Wright, of Stillwater, Minn., was diagnosed in 2003 with multiple myeloma, a cancer formed by malignant plasma cells. There is no cure, but Wright is able to manage it through treatments.

"I run partly because I just love running and partly to get this message out, too: that innovative new treatments can keep us going," Wright said at the finish line, wearing a shirt that read "E-race cancer."

'Basically miraculous new treatments'

Currently, Wright is receiving a combination of medical treatments and therapy that did not exist when he was initially diagnosed over a decade ago. For seven years, he has taken the same pill every night. He is not undergoing chemotherapy.

Wright said that his doctors have been generally supportive of his decision to run while having cancer. Some of them tell him that the running is good for his bones.

"Happily, I've been saved by innovative, basically miraculous new treatments," Wright said. "It made it possible for people like me to live an absolutely normal, or even abnormal life, and so I am an avid spokesperson for novel, new medication."

Wright ran his 10K at the Rose Wofford Sports Complex in Phoenix on Sunday to bring attention to a website called Patient Power that aims to inform patients about new treatments. The president of Patient Power, Andrew Schorr, also happens to live with a cancer of the blood.

Wright said that the new medicine has brought him hope and races have given him a reason to travel the country and do so with his loved ones.

"At the time I was diagnosed, there was no hope of me being able to do anything like this," Wright said.

He was expected to die a few years after his diagnosis, he said.

A family affair

Wright ran cross country in high school, and he decided to start running again in his 50s. He enjoyed his renewed passion so much, he decided to run a marathon. Two weeks after that first marathon came the cancer diagnosis.

Wright decided to keep running marathons. One of his first goals: qualifying for the Boston Marathon.

After running a couple more marathons, Wright qualified and headed to Boston with his wife and daughter.

"By then the three of us were having such a good time, we went to all of these things (races) together," Wright said.

He started another goal: running a marathon in all 50 states. "We started clicking off states," he said, "not really expecting to get to all 50 'cause I was supposed to die."

This was Wright's third race in Arizona. He made Arizona state No. 3 in 2002 on his way to all 50 states, and returned in 2015 for marathon No. 86.

Running marathons has helped him embrace his disease, rather than being depressed about it, he said.

His races have remained a family affair.

"I have almost an infinite amount of support from my wife and my daughter," Wright said.

At every race, Wright's wife and daughter come to support him and often run the races themselves.

Like 'a dog chasing a frisbee'

He used this particular race as a chance to work on reducing his time as he prepares to run his 101st marathon later this year. He hasn't yet decided which race it will be.

Wright's run Sunday was part of at least 200 different races he's run since his diagnosis.

"It's like you see a dog chasing a frisbee and you can see that that dog is really having a good time and that's how I feel when I'm sprinting," Wright said.

By sharing his story, Wright said that he has been able to affect others. He has given talks to groups and often has had people come up to him afterward and tell him that they are also inspired to run a marathon.

Wright said he has been given "an incredible amount of hope" from his new medications and hopes to see more developed, helping patients evade what used to be seen as a diagnosis with little chance of long-term survival.

"Whatever used to be true," Wright said, "isn't true anymore."