My personal connection to Breast Cancer began in early 2007 when my mother was diagnosed. I was devastated and felt helpless, so I wanted to do something big to support her and all of the other people facing this disease. I found out about the Breast Cancer 3-Day through my boss, who had walked in it before. I decided that this was the thing I needed to do, as it’s the biggest, longest, most difficult fundraising event for breast cancer. The event was not easy, it required many months of long training walks and hours and hours of creative fundraising to meet my minimum goal. Several months after I registered for the event I became pregnant, but decided that I couldn’t quit now and kept training and fundraising. It was difficult, but knew that what I was doing was nothing compared to the surgeries and chemotherapy treatments that my mom was going through, so I continued to push myself harder. The event took place in San Diego in November of 2007, and was a complete success. It was, without question, a complete life changing experience. It filled me full of a rainbow of emotions as I took this journey with 4,400 other walkers. In the end, I walked over 50 of the 60 miles (not bad for being 6 months pregnant!) and raised over $7000.
When I heard that the 3-Day was taking place in Denver in 2009, I knew in my heart that I had to do it again. This is going to be even better than my first walk. For starters, the walk will be in my hometown of Denver, Colorado! I’m hoping that I’ll be able to see the faces of friends and family somewhere along the route to keep me and all of the other walkers going. But the biggest excitement is that I’ll be walking with my mom, now a 2-year breast cancer survivor.
I’m doing this year’s walk for my mom, but also for all of the other people that have been touched by breast cancer as well as those that haven’t been yet. Without a cure, one in eight women will continue to be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime. There are a lot of women in my life that I care too much about and I don’t want them to be a part of this statistic.
The walk is a 3-day, 60-mile journey split into 3 20-mile days. It will take place in Denver August 28-30th. Each walker must raise a minimum of $2300 to participate. Since this cause is so important to me, I have set a personal challenge to raise over $7000, beating the amount I raised in 2007. Too add to the experience, the walkers and crew camp together in a sea of pink tents, shower in special semi-trucks, and make plenty of visits to the blue porta-potties. All the time, celebrating our progress and praying for a cure!
This blog is the home for my random thoughts, a place to track my fundraising and training progress, and a shameless plug for my fundraisers!
July 5, 2007 at 6:44 pm
Hi There!
My name is Mandy Kane. I am 26 years old, and married to a wonderful guy and blessed with a great two year old son.
This is a blog that I started as a place to write about my experience with being a 3-Day Walker. For those of you that don’t know what that is, it is a 60 mile walk done in 3 days with all proceeds going to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Fund. I am very excited to participate this year.
I want to give a special shout-out to my friends in my company’s User Experience / Design Team that gave me some ideas on getting started and pushed me in the right direction. Jai and Pashmina, you are both awesome!