The Chicago Lung Run 5k

A few months back I mentioned that a family friend was diagnosed with lung cancer.  She's doing really well thus far, but I've still struggled with the feeling of complete helplessness.  What could I possibly do to help make things better?  Saturday I found my answer, by participating in the 8th Annual Astellas Oncology Chicago Lung Run.

10k runners starting the race

As soon as I found out about the run, I emailed friends and formed a team, and started fundraising for the cause.  As a lot of you may have experienced in the past, either for a charity event such as this, or maybe even for your job, fundraising is hard!  It's also a little frustrating.  I sent really heartfelt emails to pretty much everyone I know and posted on Facebook to ask for donations weekly, and the rate of return on all of that is pretty small.  But to be fair, I know not everyone donates to charities.  And those that do can't possibly give to every cause - I know that I don't, though I do try.  That's all I'll say about that, because in the end my team ended up raising more than $3,000 in support of lung cancer research, treatments and awareness!

Approaching the finish line

Adjusting my headphones... or am I dancing?

Team Take My Breath Away

The run itself was pretty great.  It was along the Chicago lakefront trail, starting at Montrose Harbor, so where I run and ride my bike pretty often.  The weather was perfect at race time - sunny and around 60 degrees.  Now that the weather is cooling off, I've been running more often, so I was able to improve my time from my last 5k in June by about a minute and a half.  This is also the first 5k that I've done without stopping to walk, which has been my goal all along.  Something about running with hundreds of people supporting the same cause was just so inspiring.  Many people were running for loved ones who had already lost their battle with lung cancer, so it made me so thankful that my friend is still fighting and is still feeling overall pretty good.  And anytime I wanted to stop or slow down, I just reminded myself that my lungs still work.  I can still run, so I should run as fast as I can.

The next run I'm signed up for is the Hot Chocolate 5k, so running for another cause that's near and dear to me - chocolate consumption.  Okay, that's not a charity run, but the 2011 Hot Chocolate 5k kicked off my health and fitness journey, so I'm excited to see how far I will have come in a year.  After that I'll be spending the winter working on distance, as my goals next year are to run an 8k in March and a 10k in April.