Terry Fox Run KL 2013...

By Frank

It's the time of the year again, at least for cancer activist like myself, volunteers and the folks from Cancer Research Initiatives Foundation (CARIF), the beneficiary for the Terry Fox Run KL. The Terry Fox Run KL 2013 was successfully held this morning (1 December 2013) at Taman Tasik Titiwangsa.

My message of hope.

A little about Terry Fox before I elaborate further on my experience with this year's run. The late Terry Fox is a Canadian who was diagnosed with Osteosarcoma on his right leg where it had to be amputated. After undergoing treatment, he went on to run the Marathon of Hope hoping to run across Canada to raise money for cancer research. He ran a marathon distance of 42KM each day for 143 consecutive days totalling to 5,373KM before he had to stop when he found out that the cancer had returned. The cancer spread and he soon passed away a few days before his 23rd birthday.

I hold the Terry Fox Run very dear to my heart due not only to my history of cancer, but also the role and purpose of the run it self, to create cancer awareness, research and to promote healthy living. I been supporting the run since don't know when and participated in it when I first found out about the KL edition back in year 2006. And this year marks my second year as part of the committee.

The committee with old and new faces had our first and only meeting at our usual meeting spot at Marmalade, Bangsar Village 2 some couple of months back. A little brainstorming and we are all good to go.

And thus, I am once again selling this year's awesome looking t-shirt over at my place. We had only about 3 weeks to sell the t-shirts before run days itself but thanks to the enthusiasm of the public, sales were good where I managed to outsell my previous years number by selling close to 1,000 t-shirts! WOOOTSSS! Sizes availability was much better this year and I worked very closely especially with Peter. For the past years, Peter who is a scientist by profession over at CARIF, was the one who will deliver the shirts to me. This year however, saw me travelling a bit to help ease his role. As a reward, I get free lunch from him! *grin... After all, he has a more noble and important job to deal with rather to delivering t-shirts. So yeah, I was in and out of CARIF for most of November 2013.

With the dedication board.

Anyway, to run day itself. Unlike last year, I couldn't attend the pre-run briefing the day before this time as I had too much work to do as it was month end. Hence, I arrived a little early at about 6am and the weather held up and it was a not too sunny morning which was really good as the action started almost immediately. I directed the water boys to somewhere 1KM from the start along the run route for unloading before I ran back to help out with the t-shirt sales which was packed with people. Wore proudly my red Team Terry's t-shirt (although I do not want anyone to suffer to actually own it) and was together with Mrs Kang, Myrt, Taty and Edwin while Professor Teo's kids helped out with the receipts. Great teamwork there where we tried to get everyone's desired t-shirt sizes. Met up with some friends too who came to support the cause of the run.

T-shirt tents.

The run itself started at around 8.30am and that was when we get our precious little rest time. However, the action did not stop at the other end where t-shirts from the previous years were selling like hot cakes at a very attractive price.

Family and advanced route.

By 10.30am, the event came to a close and crowd started to settle down and we started with cleaning and packing. Everyone helped out from young to old. Great teamwork among the volunteers!

Overall, once again I had a very rewarding time this year at the Terry Fox Run KL, a 100% driven by volunteers event where all donations collected will be channelled to cancer research. A shout-out to everyone whether committees, volunteers and participants of this truly remarkable and inspiring event as we wrap things up for 2013! Till 2014's edition!

It'sa wrap!