The ideal plan is to run this year’s Marine Corps Marathon. (Thank goodness, they let you defer a year if you aren’t ready.) I tried to get my mother to run with me by using the cold and nasty trick of suggesting she run it as a charity runner to raise money for the hospice group that was so good to her brother when he was dying of cancer a year and a half ago, and I got it turned around on me - “Well, no, I’m not running a marathon, not now, not ever, but you can run for charity…” And, I mean, frankly it’s kind of a no-brainer - if I’m going to be running the damned thing anyway…
So, how exactly do you go about doing something like that? Has anybody done it? I know it’s really easy to do it with, say, the American Cancer Society - hell, they pay your entrance fee and you’re guaranteed a spot and you don’t have to stand in lines and things. But how do you do it for a smaller charity?
And the big question - what if you can’t do it? What if you DNF? Get hurt and have to drop out? Get sick the day of the race and can’t go? I mean, essentially I’ve always thought the idea kind of silly - “Well, I wasn’t going to give any money to this charity, but if you’re going to do something to earn it, well, we’ll see what we can do.” But if it really would get people to give to help a worthwhile cause…
As in “How do you train for a marathon” or as in “How do you participate in a charity event”?
I have never run in an organized event but I’ve got a couple of friends who have done events like the Marine Corps Marathon and some of the “Team In Training” marathons. If you go to the event’s website they will undoubtedly have links to training programs - Team In Training provides professional coaches, organizes group runs, advises on cross training, diet, injury prevention/care and so forth. They’ll also get you all the details you need for how to register, start fund-raising and whatnot. If you go to your nearby running stores they should be able to aim you in the direction of marathon training groups (many stores do their own training for things like 10k, half and full marathons). There may also be free newspapers in your area (like Competitor) that are a great resource for running (as well as biking, triathlons, etc). You can also train yourself - that’s what I did when I started long distance running, just read a lot, picked up a copy of Jeff Galloway’s Book On Running and started to build up.
Was that any help or did I answer a completely different question than you asked?
ETA - dunno about the second half (what if you don’t finish). I guess it depends on how you did your fundraising - for some events your entrance fee is your donation so DNF won’t impact it. If you do your own fundraising it’s up to you what the agreement is - maybe people will pledge $X/mile, or a flat donation, or whatever.
I’ve got training down - you wouldn’t believe my stack of marathon books. Would you believe that just reading the books isn’t enough? You actually have to get out there and put miles on? It seems terribly unfair!
Where in South Carolina are you? My father lives in the Myrtle Beach area, he knows plenty of people who run and do smaller charities. He also knows some people who do the Marine Corp and might be able to help. I can send you his contact info if you’d like.
This isn’t cancer related, but the people in charge might be able to direct you to a similar organization.
I recently grew a mustache for charity, raising money for local, under funded public schools. “Mustaches for Kids” raised their money through the online fundraising website DonorsChoose.org. You set up a homepage for yourself, select a number of local projects you want people to support, and people can make their donation directly. I managed to raise $1273 with this mighty pushbroom.
Here’s a link to my homepage, to show you an example. This is not a solicitation. (Though if you want to drop a few bucks for the cause, please feel free - I picked out a few really good projects of worth.) Mods, if you think this isn’t kosher, please feel free to delete this paragraph.
For Team in Training, I’m pretty sure they don’t care how you do or if you finish. Your job for them is to meet the fundraising goal. (which was pretty steep when I checked them out, and is why I didn’t actually train with them - I wasn’t in the mood to raise over $5,000)
Would you believe that just reading the books isn’t enough? You actually have to get out there and put miles on? It seems terribly unfair!