You donate. I run. People get help.

At the end of next week, I plan to run through two straight days. No, really. I plan to start running before midnight Friday evening and run past midnight on Saturday morning. All for the American Cancer Society.

For the past two years I have raised money to help out the VCU Massey Cancer Center as part of the Monument Avenue 10k — in 2008 my friends, family and many people I didn’t know donated $1,000 for the cause. Last year my fundraising efforts weren’t as impressive, but I honestly didn’t make as big of a push as I should have. This year, since I opted not to do that race, I have felt like something was missing. But this week I got an email from my alma mater — Lynchburg College — that changed it all.

The LC Central Virginia Alumni Club has a team for next week’s Relay for Life, which will be held on the Dell at the college. My initial reaction was that I wanted to help in some way. After 10 minutes of thinking, I knew what I had to do — take my personal goal of running every day in the month of April to another level. Start running on April 9 and finish on April 10. Then I took it to another level — for every set amount of money donated, I will run a mile.

So, here is what I am doing. For every $50 I receive I will run 1 mile between April 9-10, up to 10 miles or $500; for every $100 after that I will run another mile, up to 5 additional miles or $500. That’s 15 miles that I will run to fight cancer if I receive $1,000 in donations by April 9. Please don’t think the $1,000 is a cap though — if the donations go beyond that, just keep giving.

To donate, visit my page here. If you’re in the Lynchburg area and would like to join the team, or just join me for a run that night, please leave a comment below with your email address (which is not displayed when put in the proper box) and I’ll be in touch.