Friday, March 18, 2011

It's Supposed to Be Hard

"It's supposed to be hard.
If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it.
The hard... is what makes it great."

I am inspired by this quote. (IMDB tells me it is a quote from A League of Their Own.) It is something I found on the cover of the 60-mile men's Underground Guide to Breast Cancer Walks. If you've thought about walking, I highly recommend this guide. It is incredibly entertaining -- I laughed out loud reading parts of it -- and it has a ton of useful information in it.

I came across it because I was looking the guide up to send to my newest team mate! Today I am very excited to welcome a High School friend of mine, Nancy, onto my team for this year's walk.

I remember when I was thinking about doing this walk for the first time last year. The $2,300 fundraising requirement was my biggest obstacle to signing up. In talking with my friend, Andy, who had done the walk the previous year, she said, "If the thought of raising that much money is the only thing stopping you, you should definitely sign up." The fundraising is doable. The fundraising is more than doable. My friends and family were so generous that I never really had to worry about the fundraising. In fact, they donated enough that I almost could have done two walks last year.

Not everyone has it easy as I did with fundraising. Some people really struggle to raise the money. Some people wait until the last minute to try to raise it. But they get creative and they do it. Or they pay part of it themselves. Because this is important.

Some people struggle more with the walking. It's hard to find the time to do the training walks. It's hard to find the right terrain to prepare you for what the route will actually be like (unless you happen to live near the route, which I don't). Injuries can happen. Life can get in the way. But we train. We find the time to get the gear that works for us. We figure out what problems we will have when walking. And when the time comes, we walk as much of the 60-miles as we possibly can.

Nothing about this is easy. It is an event that is supposed to be daunting when you are thinking about doing it. But it's nothing like what those who face breast cancer and their families and friends go through. It is a way that those of us who feel helpless in the face of this disease can say, I'm not just going to sit by and do nothing. This event is big and bold and amazing and scary and ... well, hard.

(3/18/11)
Fundraising: $120; Total: $620

No comments:

Post a Comment