The short version:

Running has helped me stay alive and want to keep living. This is a way to use it to do the same for others. All donations will go to the fight against the hundreds of different scourges we call cancer.

The long version:

Living both enchants and enrages me. One of the ways I've found to nourish the former and tame the latter is to run. I started late in life, only about three years ago, at the age of 43. In the beginning, it was a struggle to complete a single loop around the 1.3-kilometer path at the local park. I don't remember it being particularly enjoyable or rewarding, but for some reason, due, I believe, to a necessary damage or defect inside, I kept going.

My motivation was and still is almost entirely intrinsic. But much of my external inspiration in those early days came from the ultra runner William Goodge, who had around the same time embarked on and completed a 3,000-plus-mile run across the United States, from California to New York in 55 days. It was humbling to witness that while still working my way up to a 5k. But at some point my negligible feelings of suffering opened up to more pronounced feelings of joy and reward, and that is how and when I became thoroughly addicted to running as a practice.

My first 5k and 10k came and went quickly. Last year, I ran and finished my first marathon, and this September I completed my first ultramarathon, a modest 60k that served as the central stabilizing force in my life for most of this year. In the weeks that have followed, I've been watching as Will prepares for Mission America, a logistical nightmare that will see him push and test himself mentally, physically, spiritually, and whatever else you've got while also supporting others, as he runs 50 marathons in 50 states in 24 days for cancer research.

Donations to Mission America will go to support Stand Up To Cancer, a charity that raises awareness and funds research to detect and treat cancers with the aspiration to cure all patients. I'm not going to write anything more here about how awful cancer is, or how it has touched all human life, either directly or indirectly, because you know that already. We all do. That's the point. That's why things like this matter.

To help Will raise more money, I've joined the Mission America 24-Mile Challenge and committed to running "24 miles or more in October." I've connected this fundraiser to my newly created Strava account, so you will be able to track my October progress. But it will be more than 24 miles. I promise. I wasn't joking when I told you that I am an addict. So please, if you can, join me and Will and Stand Up To Cancer and countless others in fighting but a few of the things in life that enrage me, those hundreds of different scourges we call cancer.

Mission America: https://missionamerica50.org/

Stand Up To Cancer: https://standuptocancer.org/