For Charity

By Discretion87
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Updated 07 Jan, 13 - 11 Comments.

Sometimes I wonder what possesses me to do things like this. Traditionally, I am not an active person; I've always taken more of an interest in the intellectual. I am, after all, a writer by trade, which basically means that I'm a well-timed machine who turns caffeine into words.

There came a point in 2012, however, where I threw up my hands and shouted, "To hell with it! I'm doing this!", which earned a few odd looks from the cafeteria line at university.

The 'this' in question is an event called Tough Mudder. It's roughly a 20km mainly cross-country half-marathon run on an SAS assault course. It's advertised as 'probably the toughest event on the planet'.

After this universal declaration that I would in fact be participating in a moderately-competent display of manliness, I went on my merry way. Life got in the way a little bit, inbetween a bit of SNAFU at the university and running up and down the countryside all through November, my training for said event fell by the wayside, and I could only start training about 3 weeks ago as a result

I can't recommend this course of action. At all. Ever.

Still, that'll make it all the more exciting when I succeed.

To amp up the complexity index, I'm doing the Tough Mudder as a benefit for a charity, with the aim of raising $1000, hopefully surpassing that goal. But why should you care? Every not-for-profit out there has its hand out for money, all wanting a slice of the pie. Guide Dogs training, Alzheimer's research, funding the Australian Olympic 100m Cat Relay team. Everyone wants something from someone, so why should you care?

The answer is here. At home. Right here on this site.

I'm doing the Tough Mudder as a benefit for MS Australia - VIC/ACT/NSW, the amalgamation of three states' MS Societies. Here on the site, a long-time member and very dear friend of mine has multiple sclerosis. I've seen what it does to her, and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. 20,000 people around Australia have multiple sclerosis, and there is no cure. The most common age and sex for diagnosis is 30 year old women (3:1 ratio of women:men diagnosed with MS), but people as young as 8 years old are being diagnosed with juvenile MS.

What I am not doing is raising money for a cure. That's MS Research Australia's schtick. Although they've made some pretty great progressions, such as finding a causal link between MS and the Epstein-Barr virus, that's all very well and good, except that a lot of MSRA's research outcomes don't have immediate practical applications.

MS Australia's work has an immediate impact in the lives of people with MS, as they provide various valuable support services. It's horrendously expensive, though, as is anything where chronic disease or disability is involved. That's where we come in. Provisioning services to that many people means that resources are always stretched thinly.

I'm aiming to raise $1000, as iterated above, but I'm sure we can do better than that. In return, you get to see me run through hell on earth, probably getting hurt quite badly in the process. Do it for the schadenfreude value, do it for your own feelings of self-accomplishment and vicarious living. Or do it for Franny.

Whatever your reasons, just do it. Do something. Help me help them. Donate here and make a difference.