Why. (2 of 3)

So, I don't really have anyone in my life that has liver disease. As far as I know there's no history of it in my family, none of my close friends have it, and as far as I know I'm not particularly at any great risk of getting it (knock on wood), so why am I running a marathon to support the American Liver Foundation? Well, there's two reasons.

1. I knew from the past few years of volunteering with the team while Molly was training that they are a well-organized group that views its' marathon team as an important part of it's fundraising effort and supports it accordingly. I'm really impressed at the well-organized long runs, options for mid-week runs (hill runs and track work - though I don't do the latter), the team coach, and that they've developed good community relationships which has lead to free access to a physical therapist. The day of the race there's a ton of support on the course and afterwards. Each month there's a team meeting which allows you to better know your teammates, gain training tips, get fundraising ideas and get a feel for how we're doing as a team to reach the larger fundraising goal. Plus, these meetings always had a component that taught us about liver disease. All in all, the American Liver Foundation is really there for it's runners, if I've ever had a question or problem there's always been someone there who can help me with it. Also there are a lot of returning runners who are not only helpful to new runners, but also are very welcoming and friendly. The fact that these people come back year after years means to me that the ALF is something worth coming back to. The sum of all this is that if an organization is going to go to all these lengths to maintain its running team on such a professional level then it must mean that it's conducting its own business on the same if not higher level.

2. It's a good cause. I know that there's a lot of good causes out there, especially when you talk about diseases, and I am not the person to tell you that one is better than another, but trying to stop liver disease is one of the good ones. Liver disease comes in many types and strikes a broad range of people, most people think liver disease is caused by drinking too much or being overweight, which is true in the case of fatty liver disease or alcohol-induced liver disease, but these are only part of the story. In our team meetings we heard about people coming down with liver disease who were otherwise healthy active people (one had ironically just run the marathon for the ALF before being diagnosed). We also heard about kids who contract biliary atresia shortly after they're born. This isn't a hereditary condition, doctors suspect that it is viral but that hasn't even been proven yet, and what's worse, without early detection (as in the first 3 months of life) biliary atresia is fatal. Another scary one is autoimmune hepatitis, which is when your body suddenly and unexpectedly starts attacking your liver as though it was a foreign bacteria. Doctor's don't know what causes that one either. There's something like 80 different liver diseases, each with their own cause, symptoms, treatments and effects. The liver is the common factor to them all and so the ALFs research into understanding how the liver works helps fight them all. In that way helping with their research actually helps cover my own (and your own) health in a broad number of ways.

With that, I am 3 days away from completing this journey. Stay tuned for the 3rd part of "Why."