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Sparks to participate in cancer run to honor her mother

Sidney native Audrey Sparks moved to Mason City, Ia. the year her mother,Lolly Sparks, passed away from ovarian cancer 12 years ago.

“My mom lived in Sidney practically her whole life,” said Sparks. “My parents got married and moved to Sidney and that’s where she passed away from cancer. People knew who she was and she was a staple at Dairy Queen where she worked.”

Sparks said her mother’s favorite activity was fishing, and that she had an unfaltering love of life.

“She loved life. She was never one to give up on anything and she always kept going,” she said.

Sparks has recently been selected to participate in an event to honor her mother.

She applied and was selected as a member of the Above+Beyond Cancer Organization’s Coast for Coast Million Dollar Marathon Team.

“Our goal is to raise $1 million over the course of this summer that we anticipate will be distributed by giving about one third of the proceeds to a leading national research institution, donating another third to a leading national charity that provides programs that support cancer survivors during treatment, and donating one third to be used by the Above + Beyond Cancer Organization to fund a variety of different projects that are aligned with our mission,” said Sparks.

To be selected on the team, Sparks filled out and submitted an application to the organization.

“In the application the first question they ask is how do you define yourself,” said the runner. “They wanted to hear personal things about you and for you to explain your dreams and aspirations.”

Sparks stressed that you don’t need to be an expert runner to participate in the event.

“They ask if you have ever been involved in a long-distance running event,” she said. “But they specifically state we are not looking for elite runners, we are looking for people with heart that want to try and do something for cancer research.”

She said that the event is open to any person, no matter age or story.

“If you go onto the website and start looking at the team members you will see it’s almost honestly the most diverse groups of people running in the event that I have ever been associated with,” said Sparks. “You have young, you have old, you have people who are cancer survivors, you have people who have lost people to cancer – there are just all kinds of people involved in this.”

The marathon begins on the West Coast and continues all the way across the country, with multiple marathons in every state, according to Sparks.

“It’s kind of like a relay,” she said.“They will start the first marathon in June and then just kind of keep handing the baton off day by day and then it stretches all the way across the United States and finally ends on the East Coast.”

The runner said that participants can request specific legs of the countrywide marathon and can travel wherever they choose to - where races are being held.

“You can go on the website and look at the routes for the marathon running. It goes through Denver and it goes through Western Nebraska but they don’t have the details set on where the actual locations are yet,” she said.

“I’m waiting to see where those locations are at specifically before I decide, because if their was a location close to Sidney I would want to come out there and run for sure. That’s my hometown and I’ve been here for years and I definitely have roots here, but I think it would be really amazing to be able to run in my hometown.”

This however is not Sparks’ first marathon. She ran in her first marathon last year in Wyoming, just two days after the anniversary of her mother’s passing.

“I’m trying to run in an event every year, and I want them to be significant and mean something,” she said. “I’m not interested in running the Boston Marathon. To me that’s just a big hike-run and it doesn’t mean a whole lot. But this is something that could actually reach out and touch someone.”

Sparks said that the organization raises the funds for cancer research by the pledges they receive from participants.

“It’s just a flat rate that we raise when we say we will pledge and say that that is how much we will raise,” she said.

The runner said that besides raising money for research, another idea behind the marathon is to show people the importance of exercise.

“The biggest push behind the marathon itself is that one of the leading causes of cancer is lack of exercise and bad diet. So it’s just kind of a way for us to show people that anybody can do this,” said Sparks. “It’s not that you have to run a marathon but staying healthy is going to be a huge fight in the cancer area.”

Sparks said that she hopes her commitment will help others join in the fight against cancer.

“This is a way of showing that I am invested enough in the idea of raising funds to go towards cancer research that I will commit myself to go run this long distance,” she said.“It’s not just a one-day thing that you are committing yourself to. This is a long-term training process that you go through to be able to get your body physically ready to be able to run those miles.”

“It’s a commitment thing and to say, ‘I believe in cancer research and that we all need to come together to find an answer to this,’” said Sparks.“There is pretty much nobody that you can walk up to and say, ‘Hey, have you never heard of cancer?’ Everybody has heard of cancer and everybody has been affected by cancer.”

“Whether it is through a friend, whether it is through a family, whether it’s through your own personal experience - it’s not something that is going to go away. It’s something that we have to fight and figure out a way of taking care of it,” said the runner.

Anyone who would like to donate or help with Sparks’ efforts can visit her online pledge page at http://coasttocoastforcancer.org/audrey/.

“My mom really encouraged us to be diverse and to be our own person,” said Sparks. “If you loved to run that’s what she would support you in. I have no doubt in my mind that if she was still here she would be gun-ho and say, ‘Go get ‘em! You can do this.’ She would definitely be in my corner.”

 

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