It’s my second year participating in The Longest Day with Team Running to Remember, and another year of awe, gratitude, and hope.

I am amazed by the passion of my team and their commitment to Alzheimer’s advocacy. I am in awe of those with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, and their caretakers.

I am forever grateful, and truthfully, just floored by the amount of donations I received for the Alzheimer’s Association. I have so many thoughtful people in my life. And unfortunately, I have a lot of people in my life who have a direct connection to someone with Alzheimer’s disease or another dementia. (You can still donate here!)

I am hopeful. I am optimistic. I believe will we see major advancements in Alzheimer’s and dementia treatment and care in our lifetime. The majority of funds donated (see here) to the organization go toward Alzheimer’s care, support, research, awareness, and advocacy. This is an organization I believe in. We are making a difference!

So what is “The Longest Day,” anyway? From here:

The Longest Day is a team event to raise funds and awareness for the Alzheimer’s Association. Held annually on the summer solstice (June 21st), the duration of this sunrise-to-sunset event symbolizes the challenging journey of those living with the disease and their caregivers. Teams are encouraged to create their own experience as they fundraise and participate in an activity they love to honor someone facing the disease.

The super cool thing about The Longest Day (TLD) is that you can do ANY activity you want with your team. Yes, our team chose running, but you could bowl all day. You could knit. You could garden. You could fly your plane. You could kayak. Whatever the activity is, the idea is that you are active from sunrise to sunset, as it says in the quote above, to symbolize the challenging journey of those with the disease and their caretakers.

Team Running to Remember has been together for four years. Rachel and her friend Kim started the team in memory of grandparents they lost to the disease. And why did I join? Also in memory of a grandparent. My paternal grandfather had Lewy Body Dementia, and I saw the disease take away the man I knew and put someone else in his body (as well as give him hallucinations, disrupt his sleep, and mess with his muscle control). And honestly, it took a few years for me to come to grips with and be brave enough to face. I selfishly hope it’s not something I go through again, but, the odds aren’t super low.

For the first three years, Team Running to Remember ran from sunrise to sunset on a track. This year, we mixed things up! We ran a 47-mile relay from Monroe to Madison, WI. We chose 47 miles because in 2015, there are 47 million people living with Alzheimer’s disease, worldwide.

Our day started with a sunrise wake-up, and travel to Monroe. We had originally planned to start running at sunrise, but we delayed it until 7:30 am because The Weather Channel wanted to do a segment on us!

And then we were all off! Our course had 12 legs, varying in length from just over 1 mile to just under 7 miles, and our plan was to run the first, fifth (you’ll see why, soon!) and last leg together as a team.

The night before the event, we divvied up legs. I preferred to run more legs together, with less breaks, and chose legs 1-2, 4-6, 9-10, and 12. Another teammate stacked legs like I did, and others wanted to go every other leg, or so. Our goal was to have at least two runners on each leg, and we always did!

The first 9 legs were on the Badger State Trail, a crushed limestone, rail trail (read: flat, yay!). We started our first run off in the fog, which made me think of TLD 2014 when it was foggy for almost the entire day! The sun quickly burned it off though. By Leg 2 (which Rachel and I ran together), it was sunny and started to warm up (63° when we started leg 1 and 68° when we ended Leg 2).

We wore bibs to honor the people our donors donated in memory of

Steven called me during Leg 2 to let me know the exchange point I selected (Rachel chose the overall route and I picked all the distances and exchange points) was actually an overpass. Oops! John ran back to meet us, and we ran just a little bit further to the next major road. That was probably the only issue we had with the exchanges all day! Yay!

Southern Wisconsin is so beautiful! (Northern probably is too – I have never been.) I loved seeing the rolling landscapes and native plants!

Kim and Mattie took off for Leg 3, and we met them half way to cheer them on.

Right before that, Rachel got a call that a local news station wanted to interview them! Neat! I’ll have to post that video whenever I come across it. UPDATE – here it is.

Amy and I ran Leg 4 together and I enjoyed some one-on-one chatting and getting to know her. I did NOT enjoy the bugs. Yikes! At the end of our leg, our entire team ran back to finish the leg with us for the news anchor to video tape. Then as soon as we passed her I stopped to get some bug spray. It really burned when I put it on my neck and I started off Leg 5 feeling a bit… uncomfortable.

But Leg 5 may have been the coolest (literally, for sure) of all – we got to run through a tunnel!

We grabbed what flashlights and headlamps we had, but it didn’t help much! We walked through (as no to trip) and enjoyed the cool air in there.

Kim, John and I went off on Leg 6, after. We decided to do a 3:1 run:walk ratio, which is what John trains at for his marathons. I was happy to take walk breaks. It was 68° when I started Leg 4 but 79° by the end of Leg 6! And there was starting to be less shade on the trail!

I was looking forward to my big break until Leg 9! After I finished Leg 6, I changed clothes and shoes (I did after Leg 2 as well), then we drove around cheering our runners on and going to exchange points. We had four cars – ours, Rachel’s, John’s, and Sarah’s. I greatly appreciate our drivers for hauling us all around, cheering us on, and putting up with our smell!

It was getting hotter and hotter. We started to modify some of the runner plans – Kim took my leg 9, and Sarah ran part of Leg 8 for Mattie. We all did run/walk ratios as to not overheat, and we met our runners mid-leg to give them ice and make sure they were doing okay.

I got to run Leg 10 with Amy, again! By that time, we were in Madison, on the Capital City Trail, in an open, prairie-like park. We ran to the mile mark and walked a tenth or fifteenth of a mile then ran again. We were going along at a great pace, and I was still blabbing away (my sign that I am feeling okay), despite it being 81° when we started and 82° when we finished! The team met us half way, and was worried about how hot it was getting, so they told us they modified the course a bit – we were going to run two more miles (instead of three), then they were going to take more of a straight shot toward the Capitol Building, to stay safe.

So we probably ended up running 46 miles on our relay, instead of 47. But, better safe than sorry (and we still ran A LOT more, cumulatively!).

Rachel, Mattie and Alicia took off for Leg 11, and we met them halfway (where Kim joined them and Mattie left the leg), and again near downtown Madison so we could all run the last .4 miles to the Capitol.

That .4 miles was the hardest part of the day for me! Ha! I had my short sleeve Team Running to Remember shirt on and the sweat was just dripping down my arms. That was my hottest run at 85°! And… I was starting to feel the heat. I was getting a headache, getting sun-sick.

But there was no time for that! We had an after party to go to! This is supposed to last until sunset, remember? John was nice enough to let us all clean up at his nearby hotel, then we went to One Barrel Brewing, which donated $1 from every beer purchased to the organization! Ha ha, Amy, Steven and I stopped at Chipotle first though, and I do believe that was the BEST burrito I have ever had from there. You know how relays are – you have all that snacky food (we had fruit and other “healthy” stuff too) but you just want a MEAL when you finish! (Well, a meal and a shower!)

Somehow, my headache left me at the party! We stayed until 8:00 pm then made our journey back to Illinois. Some of the rest of the team did make it until sunset!

It feels funny to talk about how important this cause is to me then pair it with something that sounds like a race report, which is something that benefits me – something I enjoy! But that is the idea behind TLD – do something you enjoy to honor those facing and supporting the disease! Win win!

I hope I can participate next year, when TLD will be on a Tuesday. I really love this group of people and am honored they include me (and Steven – he is not pictured but he was there all day – driving and taking pics and providing support!)!