For the past two weeks, I have been racing.  Despite sleep deprivation and a nagging little achilles injury, I have been running pretty well.  So now it's on to the Pikes Peak Ascent in 3 weeks.  And here is who I am running for:  Keep Kids Alive Drive 25.

This organization was started by my brother, Tom, to help neighborhoods become safer places for kids to play while vehicles are present.  To summarize the mission of KKAD25: To make streets safer for all who walk, cycle, play, drive, and ride. This is an education process.  Most people who speed through residential neighborhoods also live in those neighborhoods.  

We complain about it all the time, yet we are also the ones who contribute to the problem.  Do you actually STOP at the stop sign?  Do you drive the comfortable 5 MPH over the posted 25 MPH limit that is posted in virtually every residential neighborhood in the country? I know I have.  So I joined the mission in 2007 to Run to Remember those people who have been killed as a result of these negligent behaviors that so many of us have. .

2007 was my first year on the team.  I've run every year with the names of so many loved ones embossed on my shirt who have died too soon and whose families now have a great way of memorializing their loss.  I've run through rain, sleet, snow, heat, personal worsts and personal bests, and a double with the names of these people in tow.  It can get pretty emotional.  We celebrate life every single year.

2009 PPM (Double year) Photo: John Garner

Now it's 2016, and I will be 10 years on this team.  KKAD25 invites dozens of family members to either run or spectate as our team runs the Ascent or Marathon.  It's cathartic.  The families bring signs of their deceased loved ones and they cheer us on as we finish the races.  It's extraordinary. One of the coolest things that happens is that these families are able to create a community that has this one horrible thing in common: the death of a child. It's spiritual.

Russ Lloyd finishes the PPA 2015

This run has become a project for the Keep Kids Alive Drive 25 organization.  I get to run.

For my brother and crew, it's putting a video together, organizing getting family members up the mountain on Ascent day, organizing a dinner and pre-race event to have all the families meet, arranging travel and hotel for the families, and to actually run.  And if you ask any family member who has been a part of this, you will know that it is a fantastic event that helps them heal.

Kayla Miller with her brother, Bobby
Rogers, finishing the PPA

Obviously, this is expensive.  If you would like to contribute to help us defray all these expenses, Click here.

Here is a cool video from last year's Run to Remember 

We run fast to help people slow down.  We run up and endure whatever the mountain dishes out each year.  We experience the emotions of the race and the people for whom we run.  We run to remember because Were on a Mission on a Mountain.