1000 Miles For Luke
THE BEGINNING. I discovered passions for running and fighting Childhood Cancer when my own son became a cancer survivor in 2018. That year I joined the St. Jude Hero team and eventually ran a few races at Walt Disney World with them. During those races, I raised $2500 for St. Jude thanks to the generosity of my friends and family. It was a life-changing experience, and sparked my imagination for future fundraisers.
LEGS FOR LUKE. A year after running those races with St. Jude, a friend lost their child, Luke, to Leukemia. I decided to join the St. Jude team again, but this time raised the bar and completed the “Dopey Challenge” to honor Luke’s memory. The Dopey was a four-day race series at Disney that included a 5k, a 10k, a half marathon, and a full marathon for a total of 48.6 miles! I recruited a few others to help fundraise while we trained, and altogether Team #LegsForLuke raised almost $15,000 for St. Jude, the #1 fundraiser for that event.
LIVE LIKE LUKE. Over the last year or so, Luke’s family and friends have formed the Live Like Luke charity, and I have the honor of running and fundraising directly for them now. This year I’m raising the bar again. I’m dedicating 1000 miles to the memory of Luke – on foot, on my bike, and in the pool. Last year, I only ran about 450 miles, and last week was the first time I’ve ever done laps in a pool. So this is a big commitment! To keep me going towards the finish line, I’m setting a fundraising goal of $10,000 for Live Like Luke. That’s only $10 per mile – will you help me reach that goal and Live Like Luke with me?
WHY LIVE LIKE LUKE?
- The mission of Live Like Luke is to provide financial support to families of children with lengthy hospital stays, to lessen their financial burdens so they can focus on being with their kids. This has included providing gas cards, helping to pay housing expenses, and more.
- In its first year, Live Like Luke has already given over $50,000 to families dealing with childhood cancer, Sickle Cell Disease, Bacterial Meningitis, Trisomy 21, complicated heart surgeries, organ transplants, and other critical conditions.
- Almost 99% of all donations go directly to the families in need. Live Like Luke is a charitable fund managed by the highly recognized Communities Foundation of Texas, and grants are made directly to families through a partnership with the Methodist church. Because of this, there is almost no administrative overhead.
HOW AM I TRACKING MY MILES?
- I use several different phone/watch apps, but they all sync to my Strava account. You can check out the tracker widget below as well as on the 1000 Miles for Luke main page. Or if you’re on Strava, you can follow my progress there too!
- My mileage goal is 1000 running miles, so I’ll convert my cycling and swimming miles in a way that’s fair, based on the Ironman triathlon distances. Cycling long distances is easier than running, so I’ll cut each cycling mile by 1/4. Swimming long distances is harder than running, so I’ll multiply swimming miles by 10.
DO YOU WANT TO JOIN ME?
- For anyone that tracks their walk/run/bike/swim activities, I’ve created a Strava “club” that you can join and add your own miles to our tracker! Check it out here.
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Live Like Luke