Gabe Grunewald, who was voted FloTrack's 2017 Game Changer of the Year for training and competing at the USATF Championships while undergoing her fourth bout with cancer in eight years, captivated and inspired a nation last year.

One of her newest fans is none other than Chip Gaines, star of the popular HGTV show "Fixer Upper."

The two met by chance in Central Park earlier this year and stayed in touch. Gaines asked Grunewald if she thought he could train for a marathon, despite limited running experience. The middle distance star encouraged him to try a 5K first, but now apparently is taking up the mantle of coaching him through the full 26.2-mile distance. 

My first athlete!  I’m so excited to help Chip on his journey to become a MARATHONER! https://t.co/jltrnflURI

— gabriele grunewald (@gg_runs) January 10, 2018

Gaines' first run was a tough 1.7 miler. You can read his blog about the experience here.

As for Grunewald, she revealed via social media last week that while her battle with adenoid cystic carcinoma isn't over, her tumors recently shrunk for the first time in years. 

She wrote in the post:

Today is a happy Friday indeed. Yesterday I had a CT scan at @mayoclinicand met with my doctor there about the results. I am about 4 weeks post-TheraSphere treatment and they wanted to see how the tumor situation in my liver has changed. Multiple docs/nurses had warned me that we might not see any change, or any shrinkage just yet. Some tumors can look even bigger with inflammation at first. We were hopeful for a good response, but anxious as usual. BUT MY TUMORS ARE ALL SMALLER! And we are hoping the response will continue with even more shrinkage. Hallelujah!  (Med ball photo shoot above is intended to illustrate this exciting change. )
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I am so, so happy to be on the receiving end of this good news and also to share it with you all! It has been years (literally God himself only knows exactly how long) since my disease regressed instead of progressed. It’s been such a long stretch of not-good news, I was honestly really beginning to wonder if I was ever going to get another tally in the “W” column in this cancer war (adenoid cystic carcinoma for me, specifically).
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This doesn’t put me in the clear, obviously. But it does improve my chances of getting there someday. I feel as though God is making a way for me — and I am asking myself to trust in it rather than continue with my usual guarded skepticism & fear, which cancer has conditioned me to hold onto. Because when God paves you a path in the middle of a dark and treacherous forest, you don’t ask, “why?” Or “how long does this thing go?” And “where the heck is this leading me, is this a TRICK?!” No, you simply say thank you. And start walking. (Or running, in my case. ) So that’s what I’m gonna do. Celebrating this victory over the weekend, and then back to the immunotherapy chair on Monday.  In the meantime I’ll be up north with @justingrunewald catching some fish on the ice with my dad!