The five of us that will be completing the marathon are 5 gap year assistants working at Geelong Grammar School's Timbertop campus where running is a vital part of the program. Kirsten is from Scotland, Nolan from America, Ann and Florian from Germany and Thibault from France. Individually we all have our own reasons for wanting to support cancer research which is why we decided to come together and fundraise as a team.

Kirsten's Story:  

At the start of 2014 my step- mum was diagnosed with cancer. She lives in Manchester, England, which is just 17015 km from where I am currently living in Australia. As you can imagine this is not a journey for the feint hearted and is fairly impossible for me. Supporting her and my family from so far away is difficult and I found that pretty hard to deal with at first, constantly thinking if there was anything I could do... when I realised that infact there is something I can do. Raising money for cancer research is better than flowers in the post, or a get well soon card, if you want them to 'get well soon' do something about it. Be proactive.

When you are slightly detatched from the situation, it gives you a lot of thinking time, and well I got to thinking. 4 of my friends, from across Germany. France, the UK and the USA will be completing the marathon. So.. I know this is pretty out there but bear with me, 248342580 people across these countries are on facebook. Imagine if this page got shared to every single of them, and everyone of them donated 50cents that would raise $124171290. Amazing no? What can you even buy with 50cents or 50p these days? It's just that annoying change that weighs down your pockets. It's that annoying change that could find a cure for cancer. Even if you don't donate, please share the page, for every person that shares it on their facebook, it opens so many more opportunites for others to find out about what we are trying to do.

You may be thinking, why Cancer Research UK if you're currently in Australia and your friends are from all over? Firstly I just want to point out that really it doesn't matter who discovers new developments whether that be cures or new treatments, because cancer is world wide, therefore that new information becomes world wide also. Cancer Research UK however also happens to be the world's leading independent charity in cancer research.

When I really started thinking about what an impact cancer has, I didn't have to look any further than my own immediate friends and family, all four of my grandparents battled with cancer, my best friend too as well as my step-sister.  I know I'm not alone either, almost everyone I speak to about this, has been affected by cancer in some way whether it was themselves or someone they know. This isn't a problem that is going to disappear or be solved immediately which I suppose is why people lack the motivation to donate. If you knew that tomorrow there would be a cure would you donate? If you knew that tomorrow someone in your family would be told they had cancer would you donate? 

Nolan's Story:

            I moved to Australia for my gap year at the beginning of last July. I had been here for perhaps a month when during a routine Skype conversation with my family back in Massachusetts, after noticing a small bandage on my mother’s face, she slipped in the fact that she had been diagnosed with melanoma. It was a small tumor, easily removed, but the phrase stuck in my head: “My mother has cancer.” The word holds a certain power. When you hear it, it is immediately associated with dingy hospital wings and tubes coming out of arms. Hair loss may come to mind, and perhaps even the now cinematically common image of a woman wearing a bandana. So when my mother informed me that she had been diagnosed with cancer, my brain didn’t work in the usual logical progression. I assumed that the full stereotype of horrible, painful, terminal illness applied and for a moment my heart rate skyrocketed, and I began to sweat. After a moment, she was able to explain to me that, no it was not serious. The doctor had in fact already scraped away the first few layers of her epidermis and removed all of the cells that had so suddenly decided to betray her body.

            This was not the first time I had encountered cancer. I had known many people who had been diagnosed previously. Many of them had survived, many had not. I knew and understood that it was a terrible disease, and in fact had even participated in a Relay for Life in the past, creating a team and raising relatively sizable funds for a child finishing the sixth grade. But this was the first time that cancer had been a truly personal subject. Suddenly every time a new freckle appeared on my arm after a few hours in the unusually powerful Australian sun, I worried that it was more than a benign dark spot. Every bug bite became the potential for a tumor, and the mole that had been sitting so innocently next to my navel for years began to look sinister. The otherwise tedious and routine application of sunscreen became a more significant action and I read up on early symptoms and signs of the skin disease in spare moments.

            Obviously protecting yourself entirely from cancer is an impossibility. In the world we live in today, carcinogens are everywhere. The science changes on what seems to be an almost daily basis, and new information tells us what products to avoid and what life choices to make. But clearly we don’t know enough. Every day more people are diagnosed with cancer. Many cases are terminal, and the remainder of cases is a constant test of the patient’s nerves, resolve and body, as well as the nerves and resolve of their friends and family.

            I had been planning to run the Great Ocean Road Marathon during the second to last month of my gap year since before I even set foot on the continent, but when my good friend Kirsten, from Edinburgh, Scotland, mentioned to me the opportunity to try and fundraise for a cancer charity important to her as part of our marathon experience, I jumped at the chance. To quote the words she has written to her friends back home: “4 of my friends from Germany, France, the UK and the USA will be fundraising with me. In those countries combined there are 248,342,580 Facebook users. If every one of those people donated 50 cents, it would raise $124,171,190. 50 cents is the change that weighs down your pockets. It jingles against your leg and irritates you. That annoying change could be the means to find a cure for cancer.”

            Even if you don’t decide to give (which frankly, I completely understand), feel free to share the link and your own message about cancer with any of your friends. The charity is called Cancer Research UK, and is actually the world’s largest independent cancer research funding organization. Please remember that even the charity is a British charity, rather than an American one, groundbreaking discoveries in medical science that might save lives will be shared globally, and your 50 cents will be put to use just as well through this charity as it might an American one. By donating to Cancer Research UK through the link provided, it simply allows us to keep track of how much money we’ve raised, which will be pretty awesome motivation during the last few brutal kilometers of the marathon.

            Thanks so much for whatever support you feel like you can give. It’s certainly appreciated.

 

 

 

Flo’s story:

 

I’m not a big fan of emotional words so I’ll try to make this as short and brief as possible! I personally never had anything to do with cancer. When I was very little my Grandpa had skin cancer but was diagnosed early enough so a quick skin transplantation healed him. Cancer never really affected me until my grandma was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer. In just a couple of weeks she went from being her normal self to neither being able to speak nor to show any sign of emotion. I was doing my community service at this time so I wasn’t super busy which meant I was in the hospital almost every day. I basically saw how the lights slowly faded. We had Christmas together as a family and just shortly after New Years my Grandma passed away. It was a tough and challenging time, but in the end I got something positive out of it. The whole situation brought the family together. Although the final result was negative, I see the outcome and the way we as a family handled the situation makes me proud.  We are now closer than ever. I have not been closer to my parents, sister or my Grandpa before. That was the time when I realised that cancer in general concerns everyone. In the last few years the progress in research was enormous and this progress needs funding. So how could I contribute towards this? I am good at running and not a bad athlete, so why shouldn’t I use this to raise at least some money to support the bigger picture? At Timbertop we run 3 times a week and as a part of my job I get a couple of extra Km’s each week. We just ran 30km in December as each Timbertop year concludes with the great T’top marathon. It was the hardest run I’ve done so far. I ran the first 20km in just  1:35, but then crashed. I didn’t drink enough and so it took me almost the same time to finish the last 10 km. Completely dehydrated I made it to the finish line. Although I had the worst result in this run compared to every other run in the year, I was proud of myself finishing the run. Now I feel I can build upon that. The Great Ocean Marathon displays the biggest challenge I’ve ever faced, but I feel like I have to do it! So that’s us now. 5 People from around the world that became friends over the last 9 months, running a 45 km race. Let’s give it a shot;)

 

 

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