Bone Marrow Drive 5k!

It’s 7 am on a Sunday and I’m awake. You’re probably thinking right now, “what in the WORLD would anyone in their right mind be doing awake at 7 am on a Sunday?” Well, my lovely readers, I will assure you that I was not awake at the ungodly hour of 7 am for just any unearthly reason. I was awake for a cause.

Here at W&M we have an incredible organization called the Alan Buzkin Memorial Bone Marrow Drive. It is the largest campus drive in the nation and it is also the winner of the first annual National Marrow Donor Program Collegiate Award. This drive is very near and dear to the campus because when it was founded, 1991, it was founded to save a professor here at the College of William and Mary. The bone marrow drive was kept running by the professors sister in order to find a match for her brother. Since the drive was started here on campus the drive has registered over 12,000 students, faculty, and members of the community. These matches have lead to 275 matches and just over 90 bone marrow transplants. (All information from http://wmpeople.wm.edu/site/page/bonemarrowdrive/moreaboutthedrive.) Just last year a girl in my sorority donated bone marrow right before she ran a marathon in the Outer Banks. A bunch of my sorority sisters also happen to be on the steering committee for the Bone Marrow Drive.

Each year the Bone Marrow Drive puts on different fundraisers to raise awareness and money for the cause. They put on a formal dance, a golf tournament, a 5K, in addition to several other events. This past Sunday, however, was the family weekend 5k that I decided to participate in. Now, if you know me, which I hope you know me pretty well by now from reading all of my blogs, you would know that I really enjoy to run. I like to think I’m in pretty good shape. So, the morning of the 5k rolled around and about 8 of my sorority sisters decided that we were going to all go out and run it. As soon as we lined up to start the race the rain began to pour. This, my friends, was not  a light morning mist. This was a down pour. Before the race even began I looked like I had just run a marathon twice over. But as it began and I fell into step next to a sorority sister of mine, Laura Ryan, we began to laugh about how soaked we were and how we must look so hardcore running this early in the morning in the pouring rain. We were cheered on every step of the 3.2 mile race by members of the Bone Marrow Drive and different students who just happened to be moseying out of the Sadler Center that early in the morning. Finishing the race was a really gratifying moment. Laura and I finished the race holding hands and cheering. It was kind of cheesy, but a really cool moment. I’m glad I got soaked and had to feel the soreness the next day as long as it helped out my friend’s cause and raised some money for a cause close to the heart of this college.