Running around the world

I entered this photo in a Conde Nast "travel moment" contest...click here to see why

Remember all that talking I did about the marathon on the Great Wall of China that I ran about 2 years ago? Well, surprisingly (at least to me) I'm still running (crawling, hobbling) in a variety of these things and this year I have a couple of international races planned towards my goal to run on every continent in the world.

It's not that I'm addicted to running, as some of my friends have said, I just want to prove to myself that I can do it. (Or still can do it 'cause here's the thing...just because I've already run some doesn't make them all that much easier...it's still 26+ miles and I'm not getting any younger, shockingly).

The 7 - continent thing came about from a proverbial "hitting the wall" moment. When I pooped out at Rocky Point during last year's Big Sur Marathon, I realized I wasn't likely to ever qualify for the Boston Marathon and it kind of bummed me out. (That had been my original goal, running both the New York and the Boston Marathons...those were the famous ones when I was a kid.) So to keep me going during the LONG 10 miles I had left to the finish line, I decided to come up with another goal. And since I'd already run in Asia and America, the new goal meant I only had to schedule marathons on 5 other continents. Easy, right.

Not the running part, the meeting-my-goal part. All it takes is frequent-flier miles and exercise.

Anyway, I'm knee-deep in planning for this years runs and I'd like to do the international ones as fundraisers for charity (it seems to me if I'm going to choose a self-involved goal like "running the world," I should try to run it to help people.) I ran the Great Wall as a fundraiser for the local Deaf and Hard of Hearing Center in Salinas, but for these ones I'm trying to figure out how to run to help raise money for ovarian cancer research/treatment, etc. I know that they have a variety of "teams" that do 10k's and marathon's to raise funds, but I don't know how to do it "alone." (I'm pretty much a loner when it comes to running).

And raising money towards helping find a cure for ovarian cancer just seems like the right choice to me. I have friends who are fighting this particular battle...if they can take the time to let me talk about my plans, stategies and training, I'd like to make the running help them in some way. But I really don't know how. Anyway, I'll let you know if I figure it out (or email me through the contact page if you have leads). I have until June, but I better get going on it and not do my usual procrastinating.

I'm off to St. Louis in a couple of weeks to run the Spirit of St. Louis marathon on April 15. If you see me there, hand me a beer (I don't like Gatoraid).