The Minnesota running community lost one of it's most active and enthusiastic members this week as Cindy Brochman passed away after fighting cancer over the past year. Cindy died at her home, surrounded by her husband Kevin, family and friends, on the day of their 6th wedding anniversary.
A memorial service will be held at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, January 10th, at Eagle Brook Church in White Bear Lake. Visitation will take place from 2:00 to 3:00.
For more information on Cindy's athletic career and her battle with cancer, read Chad Austin's interview at Running Minnesota, or visit Cindy's CaringBridge site, which Kevin continues to update.
One of our Baba Yaga teammates from our Hood To Coast relay team wrote this tribute to Cindy:
Cindy Brochman was part of a sisterhood, born fifteen years ago, on the top of a mountain. Every year since the mid-1990s, Cindy covered the steep, grueling first leg of the Hood to Coast Relay in Oregon, as part of Team Baba Yaga, a sisterhood of twelve. The faces of those twelve changed a bit from year to year, but Cindy’s face was constant. Cindy’s salience was insured at the annual event, as it was her character that embodied the spirit of Baba Yaga. From the confidence she exhibited at the start of the relay, clad in bun-huggers, to the fearlessness that set the square of her jaw-bone, to the strength she poured into those dreaded “fourth legs” of the relay she was called upon to run on more than a few occasions, Cindy’s spirit led the Baba Yagas to Women’s Open Division Championships or runner’s up, fourteen years in a row. Cindy played out the message of the Baba Yaga story on the course and in her life. She embraced all of life’s challenges with a sort of zeal that most of us only envy. Her final race was not so unlike the many that preceded it. She was familiar with the pain associated with drawing breath in the final miles. In the end, her last race must have ended the way all good races do; with the embrace of friends and loved ones, and a feeling of deep satisfaction, knowing that you dredged the depths of your abilities, and discovered a surprising new piece of the humanity you call Self. Suddenly, you feel unburdened…free…as if you had wings.
Thoughts go out to Kevin Brochman and all of Cindy's family and friends.
