Emotions before running
100 km to End Kids Cancer
I joined the GoodGuysTri running team in March with
two goals – raising $2000 to End Kids Cancer and running 100 km solo as part of
the Sears Great
Canadian Run on October 4th. I am so happy with the fundraising. People are unbelievably generous. I’ve actually more than doubled my
fundraising goal and my team has raised nearly $80,000 to End Kids Cancer. Awesome!
Now I just have to run for about 13 hours to complete 100 km between
Ottawa and Montebello?!?. Although I
believe Glen referred to me as an athlete in one of his posts, I’m really
not. I am a regular guy who decided to join
a team who are doing something epic for a good cause.
I figure that I’d been sheltered from any deep thinking about the run because
I’d been focused on the Pint n’ Pizza
night that I was organizing as a fundraiser at Boston Pizza. That night was amazing. The event was supposed to run from
6-9pm. I showed up with volunteers from
my team at around 5pm. Guests for the
event started showing up soon after. The
dining room was filled to capacity by 5:55 pm, followed quickly by the bar and the
patio. More than 150 people broke bread
with us. Councillor Jan Harder, who did an
amazing job promoting the event on twitter, joined us for an event that
demonstrated that we live in a very generous community. We packed the place to the rafters with
people who wanted to eat, drink, be merry and do something great to End Kids
Cancer. We had so much fun and raised $1752.17 from the raffle and from a
donation by Boston Pizza. By 9 pm,
Boston Pizza was empty again. It was
like a fundraising flashmob!
With that over, I started to have
time to think about the run and rather than my usual positivity, I turned
initially to fear. This was heightened
by the unwelcome appearance of a reoccurring knee issue during a run. What have I gotten myself into? I’ve only ever run a marathon (42.2 km), how
am I supposed to run 2.5 times that? What if I can’t even start because of my
knee? My teammates are athletes…I’m just some dude. And on and on and on...
Saturday I participated in Run
4 a Cause. I’d been resting my knee, biking and swimming
instead of running, and it held up just fine over this short distance. Even more important though is that I got to
hang out with my teammates and other people who are passionate about doing
good. This really gave me a boost. Their positive energy is infectious. I’m glad I caught it!!
In the last week leading up to the
event, I am ready to rock n’ roll. I
have trained for 16 weeks for this event, completed more than 850 km of running,
including tons of runs through the hills near where we keep our trailer. I have completed a number of marathons
now. I have completed really tough trail
runs. I am ready!
And I am running this for the kids
who have cancer and all those whose lives have been affected by pediatric
cancer. I have heard their stories and
these stories will provide me endurance for the run.
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