As the event approaches I thought it might be nice to discuss what our inspirations for taking part in this wonderful event.

My inspiration, which is sadly all too common I'm guessing, is that I lost a loved one to cancer. Twelve years ago my grandmother lost the fight cancer. I was very close to her, having spent a large portion of my childhood with her after school and during holidays as my parents worked, and the day she died was the most heartbreaking of my life. Even all these years on there is rarely a day that goes by that I don't think of her (and I have to admit I am choking up whilst writing this).

Thankfully my family has never been effected by paediatric cancer, but my brother has two young children, and nothing terrifies me more than the thought of my niece or nephew being diagnosed with it. So upon hearing about Extra Life I decided I would do what I could to help those who are living my nightmare.

my family is lucky enough to have survived without getting cancer, but i belive that it is a good cause and plus i get to game for 24 hours :lol:

My family has more than a few cancer survivors in it, but my inspiration is more because I want to contribute to a good charity. I just don't have the physical attributes needed for a 26 mile run :lol:

I haven't lost anyone to cnacer but I know people that have. My main inspiration would be the community of course and all of their efforts to raise money.

My inspiration is personal and spiritual, my grandmother survived cancer and i also have a spiritual calling to do this event, i enjoyed doing it last year and felt more of calling this year to do it as it was one of the things god has called me to do.

I lost my grandma to cancer and one of my best mate's children, the youngest (2 years old this month) is currently battling brain cancer. He's gone through two brain surgeries and radiation treatment already. Now he's on chemo.

I just had to get involved with Extra Life again.

2009...

The magic year that sent cancer into my personal life. My family has never had cancer of any sort in both my father and my mother's side. Cancer was something that never happened to anyone I knew. I did recognize how serious it was, however, and have always donated to causes when I had the money to do so. However, this year changed all of that. Ever since I had moved to Colorado in 1993, I have had the same 2 best friends. Jim and Dave. As time moved on, we still kept in touch and are still close to this day. But last year a speedbump appeared and Jim's dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. At the time we didn't think it was a serious cancer and indeed, with treatment it went away and didn't come back. Or so we thought. Flash foward to this year and his dad finally broke the news that everyone dreaded: The cancer was back. But this time it had spread to his foot somehow. So now the doctors believe that it may have spread throughout his body. It's a tough thing to deal with and with him being like a 2nd father to me while I was in middle school/high school... it's a heavy blow to me. To make matters worse, my 2nd best friend, Dave had two kids not too long after we were out of high school. His oldest is 9 years old and recently she had an enlarged kidney. It wasn't thought too serious as it may have been an internal bruise or what have you. Upon a recommended trip to a children's specialist it was found that it was a tumor of some sort. A biopsy would've been bad in the position it was in, so to be safe they completely removed the kidney. After a few tests, it has been concluded that they believe it has not spread anywhere in the body and was contained on the kidney itself. The bad news is the biopsy from her kidney revealed that it was indeed cancer and not a simple cyst. So for now we have to wait and see what happens.

Then my father and mother got physical exams and found they may have prostate and breast cancer respectively. After a hard month, it was revealed that neither of them have cancer but common ailments. To make matters even worse, a woman i work with has a daughter roughly my age (28) who wasn't feeling so great. So after a hospital visit it was revealed that she had colon cancer that had spread throughout her body and has been given months to live.

It's been an amazingly rough year and this new thing "Cancer" has smashed me completely upside the head and I feel that now, more than ever, is my time to get up and do something about it.