Meet Sarah.
Sarah Elizabeth Bloomfield. She was my cousin. She was my best friend. She was a beautiful young woman who happened to be born with Cystic Fibrosis.
Sarah was only six months older than me and the two of us grew up together. We played together, got into trouble together, and laughed together. A LOT. She had this amazing, infectious laugh that everyone loved hearing. If I sit quietly, I can still hear that incredible laugh now. Sarah lit up every room she was in, and she lived life to the fullest.
On March 15th, 2005, that all came to an end. Sarah had been placed on the lung transplant list the previous year, and as new lungs came and went, twice, Sarah died waiting. She died two weeks before her 24th birthday.
They say the average person takes 16 breaths per minute, 23,040 breaths a day, 672 million in a lifetime. Sarah took about 30% of that number.
And that is exactly why I am running. Sarah may not have been able to take all those breaths, but I can take as many extra as possible, and help raise crucial funds for research and awareness along the way.
Over the past six years I’ve cycled across the Canadian Rockies twice, and in 2016 I rode around the perimeter of Prince Edward Island, all in support of CF. This year, however, I have decided to take on a new endeavour…something that will challenge me more than any of the past adventures.
Running the entire Bruce Trail in three weeks means running an average of a marathon per day on some of Canada’s most technical hiking trails. It won’t be easy, but I know that Sarah will be on my shoulder, pushing me along the way. And I know that anything ‘hard’ that I experience will be nothing in comparison to what she went through. I know that any extra breaths I take will help make a difference, thanks to donations from people like you, towards ground-breaking research, treatment and care, so that others with CF can take more than 30% of the breaths of a full life.
*see Donate for details on donating
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