On a yearly basis, an immense number of people, including the students of Alexander Galt Regional High School, run for Terry Fox day. When the Terry Fox run comes along, you may be asking yourselves why run for a guy we’ve barely heard of? Rest assured that there are many reasons that it remains absolutely necessary to fight for the cause.To better understand why it’s important to commemorate the young lad, you’ll have to understand his story.
Terry Fox, also known as Terrance Stanley Fox, was born in Winnipeg Manitoba on the 28th of July 1958. From the moment he could walk, Terry was as determinedly competitive as possible . When Terry was but a child in elementary school, he would arrive at the corner where he was picked up for baseball practice an hour early. Afterwards, In his high school years, he was fueled with a drive to become part of the basketball team despite being a mere 5 feet tall in 8th grade. Throughout his scholastic journey, he achieved an immense amount of athletic success.
All was going well for Fox, until he rear ended a truck. He emerged without injury but it was at this moment that he realized he had a brutally sore knee. In the following weeks, the pain intensified leading Terry to the doctor’s office where he was diagnosed with cancer and told that his leg would need to be amputated and that he would need to undergo chemotherapy.
Now, equipped with his prosthetic limb and a new set of wheels, Terrance Stanley Fox would be invited to the Wheelchair Basketball Association all-star game, in which he would go on to out play and out skill his opponents. Terry had considerable success after his amputation but, he now had a different goal set in his mind, he wanted to run.
The young man trained himself, slowly gaining the ability to run further and further until the point that he was gaining miles. This continued, until he ran his first marathon, about 27. It was then that Fox started his Marathon Of Hope, a fundraiser run in which he was planning to span the entirety of Canada; he ran the equivalent of a marathon daily, around 42 km.
Sadly, the young runner had to conclude his race in Thunder Bay, Ontario. After 143 days of running and 5373 km covered, he was forced to stop because the cancer reached his lungs. During the run, he managed to raise one dollar for every person in Canada. Shortly after, around one year later, Terrance Stanley Fox passed. With the knowledge of Terry's impressive backstory, it's understandable why we run not just for Terry but for the cause he fought every pace of his run for.
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