Relay for Life

Last night I participated in The 2010 Relay for Life of Salt Lake City, an event put on by the American Cancer Society. I signed up with my team from Bright Horizons, the center where I teach, and we worked together to raise over 3,000 dollars! The entire event raised around 24,000 dollars. You can still donate until August 31st by clicking here. I had a great time at the event! We arrived at This is the Place Heritage Park at around 6pm, and started walking. They set up a walking path that goes around the edge of the site (its about a quarter mile distance), and the idea is that someone from your team is on the track walking at all times throughout the entire night, because cancer never sleeps. The evening didn't start out so well for me.


I was SICK! Good thing there were good bathrooms close by, that's all I have to say. However, after a LOT of that lovely pink pepto and some lying on the ground time, things started to look up. Below is a picture of my wonderful co-teacher, Sarah, and I. LOVE her.

So, we started to walk. I felt pretty weak and tired for the rest of the night, so I didn't put in as much walking time as I would have liked, but I still did some. When we weren't walking, we were sitting at our camp site, chatting, eating junk food, and watching the sun set. When it got dark, they did an Luminaria presentation. They light luminaries that people have purchased and decorated in honor of the people in their lives that have either survived cancer, are currently battling it, or have lost their lives to it. They then showed us a video presentation about a little boy who battled cancer for about 7 years, and is now a healthy 10-year-old. It was truly inspiring. Then they went through a slide-show of pictures of people who had struggled or were struggling with cancer, or who had lost their lives. Everyone in the slide-show was someone close to those in attendance at the Relay. It was quite sad.

At around 2am, we decided to go to bed. Most of us "slept" until around 6am. (The ground was very hard and lumpy, and it was SO WINDY.) There were 2 girls from our team that walked the track from about 1am til 4am without ceasing. They were awesome! At 6:30 we did a few more laps, watched a beautiful sunrise, and had a very nutritious breakfast of McDonald's sausage biscuits, hash-browns, donuts, and orange juice. Mmmm, so good. The sunrise was just as spectacular as the sunset. I so enjoy being up early enough to see the world wake up. It's one of my favorite things.






The event ended around 9 and we headed home! I slept from about 10 this morning until 3pm. Weird! It was a good time, and I hope I can do it again next year.