Posts Tagged ‘DetermiNation’

The sun coming up Saturday morning was a bittersweet moment -- I was glad rest was coming soon, but I also wanted the night to keep going.

What I did Friday night/Saturday morning at Relay for Life has left me with an empty feeling that running a race leaves me with — I want more; I want “what’s next” to be right now.

At this point, I’m not sure if it’s the running that left me feeling this way — it certainly was far short of a race performance — or that a successful round of fundraising to fight cancer is over. I think it’s a combination of the two. I have this double feeling of emptiness — I am ready to train with more miles and run harder; I also want to do more to fight this disease.

I have things in mind, like DetermiNation that I mentioned in my last post, but I’m not quite ready to make a commitment to any particular event. It’s tough. I also want to take part in Relay for Life again next year — perhaps more than one. I have a desire to do more than what I’ve already done and it’s almost like I’m not sure what direction I should go.

While I figure out what’s next, I highly encourage everyone to get involved in running to fight something. While I’m passionate about fighting cancer, there are so many other things you can do.

It’s easy as a runner to get caught up in a self campaign – I’m doing this, or I’m doing that, or I have this problem. Question yourself whether or not that’s the type of runner you want to be.

If you’re running for a cause, you’re running for thousands. And those people could care less about how fast or slow you are. They’ll be happy that you’re fighting for them and, very possibly, saving their lives in the process.

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.