May Day in Bucharest-running for life!

May Day in Romania is a national holiday, and there are lots of different activities organised all over the country to take advantage of the free time.

One of the leading schools in Romania is the American International School of Bucharest (AISB). For the last 8 years AISB has organised an annual fun run linked to the charity Terry Fox Run for Life. Terry Fox was a Canadian who contracted cancer and even though he lost a leg as part of his treatment he started to run all around Canada to raise awareness of cancer and to raise funds for the fight against this vicious killer.

Sadly, he died before he completed the challenge, but his spirit lives on and all over the world the spirit of running for life is maintained. In the first seven years of holding the runs in Bucharest, AISB raised over $70, 000 for cancer research and this will be further augmented when the funds are all gathered in for the 2008 Run.

This year the sun shone on the righteous (and even on the unrighteous) and literally hundreds of people from very young children right through to rather old bloggers ran the five plus kilometres to ensure that Terry Fox although no longer with us in person, remains firmly with us in spirit. Before we ran there was a superb mass warm up organised by the World Class Fitness Academy of Bucharest and then the torture started!

Unbelievably, the Blog ended the run in fourth position. However, the results were immaterial, the only important result is that as well as having a fun day in the fresh air it was possible to raise lots of money to continue the fight against cancer.

Terry Fox-Rest in Peace!