Fighting cancer, a tenth of a mile at a time
It took two pairs of shirts, socks, underwear and shoes, two hats, one Garmin, a lot of sweat, a visit with my chiropractor at 1:30 a.m. and a lot of fight after maybe an hour of broken sleep, but 13.2 miles of running and a few more miles of walking later, Relay for Life is over.
That’s right, 13.2. Not 13.1. An extra tenth of a mile more than I promised just as a way to put a little more umph into kicking cancer’s butt.
I broke my running into three segments — 5.1 miles around 10:30 p.m. with a friend I met recently on Daily Mile; 5.1 miles a little less than 2 hours later; and 3 more miles that began at 4:45 a.m.
Those last 3 miles were in a Zombie-like state. I don’t really remember them that much. There’s really no other experience to compare it to.
Trying to get some sleep around 2:30 a.m.
It was so worth it though. Thanks to some final donations around 6 a.m., my fundraising passed $1,200 for this Relay for Life. My team is currently just pennies away from $3,400, but I expect that to get very close to or pass $3,500 by Monday.
All of the Lynchburg teams combined have raised more than $285,000 so far with that total likely to rise significantly after the final donations roll in.
This concludes the fourth year in a row that I’ve done fundraising to fight cancer and the second year taking part in a Relay for Life. I’ve raised more than $3,000 in this span. It’s such an unbelievable feeling — if you’ve never done it, I highly encourage it.
For my fifth year in 2012, I’m already looking at doing an American Cancer Society DetermiNation race — as soon as I figure that out, I will let you know.
As passionate as I am about running, I’m becoming just as passionate about fighting cancer. Let’s do this together.
This is what 13.1 miles looks like on a track. The lone line is from where I ended the first segment on one side of the track and started the second run on the other side.
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Good god I can't imagine the zillions of times around the track on little sleep. That's frackin awesome. Awesome that you raised so much money for it. All around awesome.
Considering that 4 laps on the inside lane is almost a mile, and I ran the outside lanes as much as I could, it was about 50 laps of running, plus I walked at least 3 miles, probably more. So I'd say grand total was in the range of 65-75 laps around the track.
For everyone that follows David's blog you are well aware of the hard work that he has put in to help fight cancer, but you really had to be there to appreciate what a labor of love and passion this was for him. This was my first Relay for Life event, but it won't be my last! Please get involved with your local events. GREAT JOB DAVID!!!
Great job David - really impressive effort for a great cause!
Great job, David! I don't know if I could stand running around a track for so long, but I'd definitely like to participate in one of these events someday. Fundraising is tough and I won't do it all the time, but it does feel great to contribute to something so important!
Congratulations on the running and the fundraising-great efforts all around.
wow. this is completely awesome.
[...] As far as what worked after hitting my $500 goal last year, it became a wild ride — if I hit $1,000 I would run a half marathon during Relay. That’s lap after lap after lap on a high school track. Who wouldn’t want to make me run? I ended up raising $1,200 all because of the desire to fight cancer. In the end, that running part was just a nice bonus. You can read more about that night HERE. [...]