About a year ago to the day, I was training for my first half marathon and it was grueling. Running tons of miles in the middle of the summer heat, it was a test on my body that I was willing to endure. A few months later was my race which was the Navy-Air Force half marathon in DC. When I crossed that finish line, it was one of the best feelings I felt in a long time, all those months of hard work and training paid off.
After taking some time off I was trying to figure out what I could do the following year that could top that. That's when I came across Eastern Trek for Cancer. It was a program through the Ulman Cancer Fund for Young Adults where the participants could either run 40 or 100 miles and help raise money for cancer. I knew I wanted to do that and to challenge myself I picked the 100 miles.
My run would go from South Orange to Long Beach Island, New Jersey with a team of other dedicated runners. 100 miles sounded intimidating but doing over the course of a week wasn't that bad. The first day was by far the hottest as we were running 22 miles in 100 degree heat. The next day we had our first hospital visit, where we handed out support bags and interacted with cancer patients.
The next two days were filled with more miles with 17 and 24 respectively. Then that Thursday was our second and final rest day and we visited the same hospital. Only this time there were different patients and it was packed. The doctor was there too and she appreciated our efforts.
The best part about this hospital visit was that it was a lot more eye opening to me. Over the last couple years I went through a lot but after talking with the patients I realized that I needed to appreciate the things I had going for me. I met an older patient named Mike and he reminded me a lot about myself. I wasn't quite sure what he was diagnosed with but one thing for sure was that he had such a positive attitude and like me, is a big baseball fan. His favorite team was the Yankees (which is also my favorite team over on the American League side) and he told me many stories from watching Babe Ruth as a kid, to Joe Dimaggio's 56 game hitting streak (which likely will never happen again), to Mickey Mantle, and Reggie Jackson. Of course we also talked about recent Yankees stuff too from Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter retiring and even how Alex Rodriguez is still doing damage at age 40. He said he had treatment for a long time and he was ready to just go home and watch the Yankees game which reminded me of how when I work or study I always look forward to getting back to watch a game.
The patients also loved my magic tricks and I even did some new jaw-dropping ones that I never showed anybody else before. Anytime I have a chance to put a smile on someone's face and give back, I always want to take advantage of. This honestly is the first time I've given back since high school. During those days it was mostly giving back to kids with disabilities, so this was my first time doing something for the cancer community and I would definitely love to do something like that again.
On the second to last day we ran to Seaside Heights to Forked River. For any of you MTV fans, yes Seaside Heights is where they filmed the "hit" show Jersey Shore. In the middle of the run we ran through the town Ortley which was familiar territory for me because my Uncle Mike had a beach house there. I called him and he told me to come by so the rest of the team and I got to spend time at his house for a nice break from running. It was nice seeing how his house was still standing despite Hurricane Sandy wrecking many houses in the Jersey Shore a few years ago. It was only his basement that was wrecked badly but everything else was good.
Saturday was the last day and we ran all the way up LBI with the course ending at the Barnegat Lighthouse. When it ended I was pretty sad the week was over but mostly excited that I completed another big running challenge. It wasn't even the fact that I ran 100 miles that I found the most impressive it was the fact that I raised $1,875 towards the Ulman Cancer Fund, a number I never thought I could reach.
I would just like to thank all of you who donated to me and even if you didn't, I still appreciated the support. All the phone calls and texts wishing me luck and checking in to see how I was doing really meant a lot to me and helped push me through each mile. Now that I finished that big endeavor I still feel like it's just the beginning of my distance running career. Now it's time to start, or should I say continue, training for a fall race as well as work on other projects I got coming up in the near future…
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