On Sunday myself and a group of girls who I work with took part in Cancer Research’s Race For Life. I had just sponsored a friend of mine who was running for some members of her family when we decided to get a group together and have a go ourselves.
It doesn’t take many conversations before you realise the amount of people that are affected every day by this awful disease, so we thought what better way to raise money for this cause.
We did know working in the hub of a very giving village with generous surroundings that we could raise a large sum which was the main priority, admitting that 5K was a manageable distance. However, we didn’t quite understand how charitable our family, friends and customers would be.
We had opened a Just Giving page about a month before the event and had a solid sum raised on there of about three hundred pounds. We then put a bucket in the shop during the week leading up to the event and began counting on Saturday while closing up the shop.
Upon opening the bucket I was truly gobsmacked with the amount of paper money I saw piled up and twenty pound notes at that. ‘There really are some good people in this world’, I thought to myself while reaching a total of £345 in notes alone. A thought that I need to remember when dealing with the more stressful aspects of daily life!
Next came the coins which amazed me further with most of them being shiny gold one and two pounds. The total in the bucket was £430.71 and our running total is £855.71. Truly amazing. Now for the race itself.
Having done no practice aside from training our livers to cope with another bottle of wine when celebrating after, we headed off. We had printed t-shirts from a gentleman who initially wanted to charge a small fortune but once we’d established that it was a charity event and put our foot down, we haggled and we won. Smugly we loaded into the cars and off we went to Nowton Park to run, jog or walk for life.
The build up, though dragging as with all of these types of events, was lovely. All organisers made a huge effort to boost our spirits and create a brilliant atmosphere for the event.
The sadness came when the commentator asked a girl who was stood in front of me to place her hand in the air. I read her sign on her back which said ‘thank you for my treatment’. A tear trickled down my face and she was sobbing.
Another lady stood up on stage in front of the 1,600 participants and declared her love for her sister, a fighter who was battling cancer and running the race that day too. These stories really brought home why we were all there, how real cancer is and how much it is affecting people around us daily. Whether a loved one has been diagnosed or you’re battling it yourself, it affects us all at some point.
While walking around the course and gossiping to my friend, catching up with the others and running breathlessly past them pretending we’d ran the entire way, I thought the whole time. I thought how amazing each and every one of those participants were to do that extra bit and go out of their way to raise cash. I thought how amazing the age range was from tiny tots singing The Greatest Showman soundtrack throughout to elderly ladies making an effort. I thought how brave those were who were battling cancer as they raced, yet they still got out and fought some more.
It’s times like these when not only do you think about the obvious. About cancer, about loved ones and about helping. But it’s times like this that you think how much good is in our world when sometimes all we feel we can see is the stressful, the annoying, the bad.