Attention couch potatoes: Run. Walk. Bicycle. Just do it.
Just about every major disease has an associated walk, run or something form of exercise to raise funds for research, cures and awareness. A quick Google of any combination of the words “fun run/walkathon/bikeathon”, “Washington DC/Virginia/Maryland” and “cause of your choice” will yield hundreds of links to everything from AIDS walkathons to cycling tours for the March of Dimes.
For those of you who sweat at the thought of aerobic activity, there’s plenty of ways to help out and still enjoy the great outdoors. Organizers need enthusiastic volunteers to hand out snacks and water, drive the pickup wagon for the well-intended but exhausted athletes and to cheer them across the finish line.
Some of these volunteers have survived the disease. Others know someone else who has battled it. So, they run or walk or bike or otherwise help out. And sometimes they do more than run.
Take my college roommate Gail, for example. Gail is a 5’2”, 90-pound blue-eyed, blonde bundle of energy who carried a 4.0 in electrical engineering, taught aerobics and still bakes hundreds of cookies each Christmas for friends and family. She joined a major computer firm after college and traveled the world for business and pleasure.
Then her beloved brother Gary contracted multiple sclerosis in his late 20’s. Gail was devastated. And as she ran the 12:30 a.m. shift at a cancer 24-hour marathon, she made the decision that changed her life. Inspired by Gary’s fight, she quit her high paying tech job, sold her stock in the company, and moved into a 550 square foot apartment in Cincinnati, Ohio, to return to medical school.
That was 10 years ago. Today “Dr. Gail” is a practicing pediatrician and internist in Maryland.
Gary died in 2002, and if there was any sense to his suffering and death, it was that it gave the world a caring, compassionate doctor who walks and cycles in multiple sclerosis fundraisers several times a year.
So, spring is coming! Strap on that iPod and get moving – regardless of whether you’re walking, running, cycling, or congratulating the breast cancer survivor who just crossed the finish line. Who knows? You may discover a new passion. You might even drop a few pounds. You may make some new friends. Or, you just might change your life.
Just like Dr. Gail.
Jane Hess is a free-lance writer and life coach. You can send your comments to getoutandgiveback@hotmail.com
