It isn't Father Time that concerns the two anyhow; it's mile splits. Ray Myers, 64, and his wife, Sharon Myers, 58, have been running in road races throughout the country for the last 18 years. In that time period they have amassed a garage full of trophies, enough minor aches and pains to keep the local pharmacy afloat. They also collected a wide array of wooden bears, of which details are to come. Most important, each has kept cancer at bay.

Sharon Myers was the first to start running. It was in 1982 and at the time she didn't harbor any dreams of breaking records and leaving her competition in the dust.

"I had been skinny all my life and then I gained some weight," she said. "So I decided to take up running to drop a few pounds."

A few years later, after suffering a bad ankle sprain in a pick-up game of basketball, Ray Myers decided to start jogging with his wife to speed up the rehabilitation.

"I didn't plan on sticking with it but then in 1984 I entered the Draper Mile, held at Stepping Out every year," he said. "I won the race for my age group and I thought, hey, this is a lot of fun, so I never went back to basketball."

Eighteen years, hundreds of races, and thousands of miles later, the couple's enthusiasm for running remains unchecked. Ray Myers ran a personal best 17 minutes 30 seconds in a 5-kilometer race 15 years ago and his best time in the mile, 4:47, also came when he was in his forties. They compete with each other as well as other runners.

"I try to be within a minute of his time for every mile." Sharon Myers said. "When we were both running at our best it almost never failed."

Sharon Myers' best 5K time is 20:30. She has been slowed some in recent years by rheumatoid arthritis and the gap between her times and her husband's has grown. She still has the edge on him in one respect, though.

"She has more records in the Draper Mile than I do," Ray Myers said. "She has six, I only have three, but I always joke with her that the competition is harder in my division."

Which brings us back to the bears. A favorite race of the couple is the Bear-Hole 10K, held yearly at the Twin Falls State Park in West Virginia. The winners of every age group receive a small wooden bear that was carved by the inmates of the state penitentiary. The overall winner for both male and female receives a large wooden bear. The trophy room shows that Sharon Myers has quite an impressive collection of papa bears. Ray Myers has the same amount of bears, although his are the baby ones.

But to them, running isn't about trophies and records and bears. Running is about life.

Both Sharon and Ray are cancer survivors. Sharon is a survivor of breast cancer; Ray has battled chronic leukemia since 1991.

Then, his white blood cell count was above 50,000. A healthy person has a count that ranges anywhere between 4,000 and 8,000. Further, his red cell count was diminished, as is typical for this condition. The disease usually claims its victims within five years. However, Ray did not follow this pattern. Within two years his white count had dropped to 30,000, and as of last week his white cell blood count was just over 16,000. More remarkable is that for almost a decade his red count has been normal.

"Last week my oncologist told me my red count was remarkable," Ray Myers said. "That was the first time that he had ever used that word. When I was first diagnosed my doctor told me to stop running I ignored his orders, and when he saw me a few years later he said 'I don't know what it is that you are doing, but keep doing it.'"

Unfortunately the leukemia is not in remission. Ray still attributes his remaining good health to running.

When Sharon Myers was first diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, her rheumatologist also advised her to give up running and take up swimming. Her condition has improved and she is running again. "I don't know what our health would be like if we didn't run," Sharon Myers says.

Tenna Hosner is a long-time friend of the Myers. She and her husband, running veteran John Hosner, often run with the Myerses and travel with them to races.

"They are both just incredible people who work so hard on their training and on everything else," Tenna Hosner said.

Ray Myers retired from teaching statistics at Virginia Tech in 1995. His wife was on the faculty at Radford University teaching statistics until she retired in 1996.

This weekend Ray Myers will try to defend his age division title in the 5-mile race at the Commonwealth Games in Roanoke.

He'll be pleased to turn 65 this fall..

"Runners are about the only group of people who don't mind getting older," Ray Myers said. "Next year I move up to the 65-and-older age division."

That will be an advantage.

"He will be among the youngest ones in the new division," his wife said.

Father Time, beaten again.