Terry Fox Run: do it your way
Cancer didn’t stop Terry Fox from running 5,373 kilometers on his Marathon of Hope, so a pandemic won’t stop the annual fundraising events that bear his name.
This Sunday, Terry Fox Runs will go ahead in communities across Canada, but with a socially distanced twist.
Instead of organizers in each community sending out all their participants at once to run, walk or roll along the same route, participants this year will pick their own routes and do it whenever they like on Sunday.
It’s the reason organizers of this, the 40th edition, chose the slogan: “Terry Fox Run: One Day. Your Way.”
“The pandemic has changed so much in our lives — how we work, who we see — but I don’t think it’s changed our desire to help others, said Heather Cooke, who’s organizing the run in Summerland for a seventh consecutive year.
Her husband and co-organizer, Mike, has designed a handful of routes ranging from one to five kilometres in length that people can use if they wish.
Participants must register online, and may collect pledges or make a personal donation to the Terry Fox Foundation. There is no minimum donation or route distance required, added Cooke.
“The idea being that you go out on Sunday and do what you can: your hike, your bike, your run, your roll,” she said.
Organizers will, however, have a table set up in a parking lot near the Summerland library where people can make in-person donations, pick up stickers for their certificates of completion, and purchase masks and T-shirts.
In addition to the event Sunday, Cooke has organized a separate challenge called Summerland Try for Terry.
Collectively during the month of September, residents are invited to help complete the final 2,637 kilometres of the Marathon of Hope by logging their distance each time they walk, run or hike.
“Obviously it’s just so awesome on run day to see all those faces gathered at the start and all the individuals who have come together to honour Terry. So, yes, we’ll miss that in-person, community-spirit piece,” said Cooke.
“But we really tried hard to think about how to engage the community in a different way.”
To register for both the Terry Fox Run and Summerlanders Try for Terry, visit www.linktr.ee/terryfoxsummerland.
Separate virtual runs are also planned Sunday for Penticton, Oliver and Osoyoos. For more information on those events, visit www. terryfox. org.
Fox was just 18 years old when part of his right leg was amputated due to cancer. Three years later, he set out from St. John’s, Nfld., en route to his home province of B.C. with a plan to run the equivalent of a marathon each day in order to raise money for cancer research.
After logging 5,373 kilometres, he was forced to quit near Thunder Bay, Ont., when the cancer spread to his lungs. He died in 1981 at the age of 22.