Miles2Give

On Tuesday I was in New York City for the start of the Miles2Give tour. For those of you that don't know what Miles2Give is. It is a run around the United States to raise funds for sarcoma research. The team consists of four runners, and they will run 10,000 miles in the next 8 months for this great cause! They will run counter-clockwise starting in NYC, and end their tour in NYC sometime in December. The goal of Miles2Give this year is to raise $500,000 for sarcoma research for the Huntsman Cancer Institute in Utah. The research grant will go to a very well respected research team there. The team is making lots of discoveries in Sarcoma which is really exciting. This funding will help push that research further, and hopefully lead to better treatment in the future. Check out this video below.

Now that you know a little bit about the Miles2Give event. Here was my experience on Tuesday. On Monday my mom, Aunt Diane, and I traveled to NYC since the event started at 7:30 in the morning the next day. It was only my second time to New York. The following day we got up early, and made our way to Times Square where the event would soon begin. Good Morning America was live there which was really cool. While we were waiting I got on camera, and if you were watching the show at that time you would have seen me on it. I thought that was pretty cool! While we were waiting for the team to arrive I met Paige Peterson from the Huntsman Cancer Institute. She is a three time cancer survivor beating Lymphoma, Breast, and Brain cancer. We talked for a while, and she gave me some tips. One thing that she said was that having cancer makes you ageless. She couldn't tell whether I was 14 or 35 right now. We couldn't believe she was 60. She looked much younger than that. One important tip she gave me was to question everything the doctor tells you. It forces the doctor to think through your case even more. It took her 5 opinions from many well regarded hospitals to get the treatment she needed for brain cancer. If she didn't have her surgery, I would have never met her on Tuesday. I did the right thing in going to a good hospital like U of P. Who knows where I'd be if I had gone through my local hospital for my treatment.

Lots of pictures below:

Then "Life Elevated" (the name of their RV that they travel in) came into Times Square, NYC.

Next, I met each of the runners, and gave each of them a t-shirt and a wristband. They loved the shirts!

Me with Team Miles2Give

Then, we all held hands in a circle, and Landon Cooper(founder of miles2give) said a nice prayer before starting the run. What inspired him to start Miles2Give was his dream to run across the country, and the passing of his friend to Ewing's Sarcoma gave him a cause to do this. 

Landon then asked us to travel in "Life Elevated" for their first mile of the run. That was really awesome. Inside the vehicle are signatures of sarcoma warriors. It really showed me that I'm not alone. There are many other sarcoma warriors out there. The entire vehicle was covered in writing. I didn't even know where to sign my name. I decided to sign on the ceiling. I forgot to take a picture of that though. I wrote a little message that read: "Don't stop Running," and signed my name.

Another thing to mention is the paint on the runners' faces. They dedicate each day to a sarcoma warrior. They write the person's name on their faces for the day. The first day they ran for a 37 year old man with pulmonary artery sarcoma for example.

Inside the vehicle:

The plan for the day was for the four main runners plus the volunteers to run the first mile together to Central Park. Then, they condensed that to just one of the main runners, and the volunteers for the remainder of the day. When we reached Central Park we got more pictures before saying goodbye and wishing them the best of luck.

Miles2Give in Central Park

By this time I was really tired. The combination of just finishing treatment, and the really cold weather drained me. We made our way back to the hotel, and we rested. I must say that I did surprise myself in how I handled the day however. 

After some rest my Uncle Paul picked us up, and we went to his work for a tour. He works at CNBC, and that place is awesome! It was interesting to see all of the technology that goes into broadcasting the channel. It was really a great experience to end the day with.

My day in NYC was a really great one. It was the most fun I have had in a long time. It was so wonderful to meet such amazing people who are so genuinely interested in helping all of us sarcoma warriors out there. When I met these people it was immediately evident in how passionate they are about this great cause. They talked to us like we were family. 

As I've mentioned before sarcoma gets the least amount of grants from the government of all cancer types which really hinders the development of new treatments. Like Landon said, "Sarcoma is the least funded cancer in the universe." There are many great scientists out there who want to create better treatments for sarcoma, but can't because they don't have the necessary funds to get their research projects started. And that is a very sad reality. Many types of sarcoma don't even have a standard treatment while the more common types of cancer have 2nd, 3rd, and even 4th lines of treatment. Miles2Give gives us all great hope for a better future by raising this much needed funding.

I hope that by the time they make their way back to NYC in December that I can be running with them. That is my goal...

If you want to donate to Miles2Give. You can do donate to my page here Michael Judge's Fundraising Page.