Hi Dev, I’m so excited to see another tumblr-er doing determination. I really want to do it too but I’m nervous about the fundraising commitment. I’m a huge supporter of the American Cancer Society so I might suck up the fear and do it for one of my half marathons. We’ll see. Just wanted to say awesome job for signing up! Good luck fundraising and training!! – Melissa

Hi Melissa – thank you so much! I’m totally with you on feeling nervous about fundraising. In fact, I registered for my half marathon several months ago and specifically opted out of fundraising at the time. Then I thought about it some more and realized that nothing bad could come of making this commitment. I might not reach my fundraising goal, but at least I’ll have tried, done some good and made some new friends along the way.

Here’s the strange part: I signed up for DetermiNation and pledged my fundraising goal this last Friday. On Saturday, I learned that someone I know has been diagnosed with a type of stage four cancer. (I don’t know a lot about cancer, but I know that stage four is bad.)

I’m still a little nervous about raising the money, but right now, I’d feel a lot more uncomfortable if I did nothing. So many things are much scarier than asking people to throw down for a good cause!