By: Amy Bortnick

Running is something you do alone or I like to think my ipod and I do alone.  You can argue it’s somewhat of a selfish sport, many people do it for reasons that will benefit them; to get in shape, to relieve stress,  or to reach a personal goal. I’m the to first to admit I run for myself, it gives me peace and strength that helps me to deal with everything else going on in my life.  Last year when I ran the Marine Corp Marathon I did it for me! I spent long hours running, cross training, and strength training so that at the end of 18 weeks of training I could cross a finish line and say I did it, I ran 26.2 miles. It gave me a sense of pride and satisfaction. Don’t get me wrong the personal journey was extremely rewarding and I believe it’s always important to do things for yourself. Besides when your happy you’re more likely to make other people happy .

But…this time around I want to run for something bigger then myself, I want to do something that will make a difference in other people’s lives. I think the idea to run for charity and particularly BEDA (Binge Eating Disorder Association) clicked one day at a staff meeting when my boss was explaining that success comes you learn to connect the different parts of your life so you can make the most out of all your time and effort. Now, those weren’t her exact words maybe not even close but that’s what I took from it and more specifically, I took “Hey Amy maybe you should make use of all those hours you spend running”.

I decided to connect the passion developing from learning about eating disorders  first hand at RBA  and through my experience giving body image an eating disorder workshops at UMD  with my love for running and my desire to help people! The more the process for fundraising and marathon training continues the more of a connection I see in what I’m doing. What I mean is that training for a marathon takes strength, determination, self efficacy, and as I allotted to above self love. Similarly, those recovering from an eating disorder need to be strong, to learn to love themselves, and to believe in themselves. I believe in BEDA because I had the opportunity to meet the co-founder Chevese Turner, an inspirational woman recovering from BED and among other things I recognized the drive, devotion, and passion needed to make change. To learn more about BEDA and help me reach my fundraising goal please visit my Fundraising Page any little bit helps! If nothing else go watch the Youtube movie I made.