One of the things people grow accustom to as they get older is the loss, through death, of friends from school. Sadly, we sometimes have to face that harsh reality far too early in life. Such was the case, this week, when another classmate was lost to cancer. Specifically, renal cell carcinoma. Few of you reading this know Ron. His family maintained a blog of his battle, here. A close friend established a memorial page, which is likely to grow in time. (Picture courtesy of Sam Nail)
Obviously, any battle with cancer is a painful situation. That pain is shared by the family and friends of the patient. In this case, Ron is survived by a wife and daughter, Vickie and Brooke. In addition to picking up the pieces of a shattered life, Vickie must deal with the burden of medical bills from this battle.
Ron's friends will be hosting a variety of charitable events to help the family. I, too, will be throwing myself into the effort. And the best way I know to do that is to run. As indicated on the Training and Racing page, I have the Green Bay Marathon on the horizon. It is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the life of Ron, and try to raise money to help ease the financial burden his family now faces.
To that end, I am turning to the Tri Blog Community. Obviously, I know we all receive dozens (hundreds?) of solicitations each month. Most of those, however, don't come with the opportunity to truly test someone's mettle. In this case, the someone is me. The mettle? An ultramarathon.
I have contacted Ron's friends in pursuit of donation information. They have established a memorial for the collection of funds, and that will be posted here as soon as it is available.
Ron spent the last four months in the fight of his life. Nothing I experience in a race, whether 26.2, 40, or 50 miles can compare to the challenges he faced in that battle. But I will use this race to honor his efforts, and to try to help his family.
There are two things I will need from you, my friends and family. First, I will need your help in raising those funds. Second, I need your input on how this "deal" will work. My first thought was $10/mile, 50 mile limit. Something inside me says that's a pretty low bar. My second thought was $20/mile, which seems perhaps a bit high.
My third thought is a bit complex. For everything up to $300 contributed, I will run the marathon in Ron's honor. If that amount is exceeded, I will run a 40-mile ultramarathon. And if $1000 is raised, I will make it a full 50-mile ultramarathon (attempt).
Let me be brutally honest, here. I am ill-trained for a 50-mile ultra. My training for the next several weeks just got interesting, on the chance that I will tackle such a race in three weeks. So any contributions over the agreed amount will force me to truly share in a small portion of the pain experienced by Ron and his family.
Nothing can take away from the anguish of Ron's wife, daughter, family and friends. What we can do is try to honor his battle and minimize the ongoing pain felt by his passing.
Update: I received a note from one of Ron's very good friends with a view interesting comments. He pointed out that Ron was an avid runner, and was well on his way to completing 1000 miles in 2008 when he was diagnosed with cancer. I'll try to find out just how short he was of that goal, and take that into consideration when planning this run.
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