E3 - Dr Sarah Pearson | Innovation | Particle Physics, Cancer Diagnosis & Cadbury

Register: unelife.com.au/epc-coast-run

Donate: https://epc-coastrun.raisely.com/

Transcript: Hello, and welcome to Anion The Future. This is a quick announcement for the Coast Run Goes Global Event. The event is raising money for the Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI) and consists of trying to log as many running kilometres this week as you can. Similar to step challenges like Steptember. It is currently running this week and is open to absolutely anyone. To register, I’ll put a link in the description, but you can follow the instructions at unelife.com.au/epc-coast-run or google “Coast Run Goes Global” – it’s the top link for me but maybe that isn’t the case for everyone. The event has already started, and I only just thought of making this announcement to spread the word, but I believe anything you’ve done already this week will count if it has uploaded to Strava and it goes through until this Sunday 20th September 2020. I’ve currently clocked up 20km – so the challenge is there for you to beat me!

Now a bit of background on the event. My dad started the Coast Run 40 years ago while he was on college. He somehow manage to convince a group of college students to do a 200km relay run from Earle Page College in Armidale, to Coffs Harbour, and raise money for a good cause while doing it. The power of a novel idea. Over the course of the 40 years it has raised over $800,000 for children’s medical research, whilst simultaneously inspiring over 1000 students to live healthier lives and provide an avenue for students to gain real world skills, as the event has really evolved into a something much bigger, incorporating things like fashion parades and local discount cards that requires a team to put it all together.

For me personally it was a fun event to be involved in each year. I was the little primary school kid that would attempt to outrun the college students. It gave me exposure to a large variety of people following a broad set of career paths from a young age, and seeing a little what an academic life might look like. Attempting to expand my network right from the get go. It was definitely great to see an event like that continue each year where so many people were running further then they ever had in their life. It was an event for pushing boundaries. The first time I ran a half marathon distance was on Deer-Vale, part way through the run. It probably plays a bit of a role in my origins helping to spur my running through school and seeing that sometimes, to achieve something that seems unachievable there can be a great power in just starting it, and then it’s amazing how momentum, supportive friends and the will to finish can take over to get you across the line.

Anyway, this year due to COVID-19 it can’t run as normal, so has gone ‘global’. I hope many of you decide to join up – it’d be great if collectively we could reach 1000km, although even better would be 8000km (the distance of 40 years worth of Coast Runs), however we’d probably need a strong surge in participants at the moment. There are currently 39 runners.

If you’d like to find out more, I interview Brent about it in episode E2B. It is about 55minutes into the episode. If you aren’t much of a runner but still want to donate, I’ll put a link to that in the description as well epc-coastrun.raisely.com

Hope to see you on the Strava Coast Run Goes Global “Club”. Game on!