RAMMS Baltimore Running Festival & Worldwide Virtual
“RAMMS Family”
These two little words were found on many social media posts written by teammates about their weekend experience at the Baltimore Running Festival. It wasn’t just a festival of running/walking, but it was a reunion of friends sharing meals, raising pints and celebrating achievements together. The sentiment was also widely felt among our virtual teammates who joined us from their hometowns around the globe.
Baltimore Report
Meet-Ups and Activities
Brian Hile, Ryan Piner, Ryan Weller and I planned meet-ups for our team’s weekend in Baltimore, Maryland. One bonus about having our event in Baltimore was resident teammate Stephanie Walder, who was available to give us insider tips on local gems like the Guinness Brewery! Gary Pinder lives close enough to the city that he was able to go on scouting missions to check out sites from coffeeshops to backdrops for our team pictures.
Ryan Weller led a nice and easy 3-mile shakeout for those who wanted to warm-up their legs. I hung back at breakfast drinking copious amounts of coffee with other teammates. I coordinated lunch at the local marketplace, which was good for our large group because people could choose from a wide array of cuisines. Ryan Piner and Brian researched craft breweries for happy hour, which was also nice for our group (even for the non-beer drinkers) because we didn’t have to hassle with holding restaurant reservations with someone’s credit card. Plus, the microbrewery environment was totally chill for socializing. In the past, we have had outings to museums and other touristy attractions, but in Baltimore everyone just wanted the opportunity to meet and catch up with each other.
Miranda Whitworth from Thuasne and DJ Hughes from Hanger Clinic sponsored and planned our amazing post-race celebration at an ale house. Everyone had a rocking-good time and not just because our sponsors hosted an open bar (!!!) with a wide variety of local craft beers, but everyone was relaxed and in a festive mood because the morning’s races had all been completed. As well, we had an “impromptu clinic” where Fraser Allen from Thuasne gave our MS Warrior, Vanessa Ryan, advice on her SpryStep AFO.
The following morning, Stephanie and her husband, Stan, generously opened up their home and hosted a champagne brunch. Some people stopped in for a quick bite and “hello” before long drives home. Others had time to hang out over the delightful brunch. A few also visited the nearby Guinness Brewery while waiting for late afternoon flights. All in all, it was an excellent way to add an exclamation point to an already awesome weekend!
Baltimore Teammates
RAMMS was the largest “social team” at the Baltimore Running Festival. We had 83 runners and walkers: 14 marathon, 25 half marathon, 19 for the 10K and 25 for 5K. We originally had more who signed up for the marathon and half marathon; however, members switched to virtual or changed their distance because of running injuries like plantar fasciitis, MS issues like terrible fatigue that prevented meaningful training sessions, or even COVID-19.
There are always a lot of changes to the team roster in the weeks leading up to event day. Case in point: ten days prior to Baltimore, there was a poignant conversation in our WhatsApp group that really touched one of our team members, Mo.
Mo called me and said she had gained weight and is out of shape. She was depressed about it and was not planning on going to Baltimore. However, after seeing how everyone on WhatsApp was so encouraging, she felt comforted. The adage “stronger together” hung in her mind and 15 minutes after we hung up, the race registration system sent me an email notification that Mo registered to run the 10K in Baltimore… along with her husband and son!
On race morning, there was a huge wave of ombré orange RAMMS shirts and visors packing the streets of Baltimore. There were a lot of out-and-backs along the course, so we could easily spot each other and cheer each other.
Roe Collopy from New Jersey, one of our legacy teammates, gathered her best buds (both MS Warriors and MS Support Heroes) to run and walk the 5K and 10K. They are a cheeky bunch and brought life to the party with their fluffy orange tutus and feather head boppers (and one or two cow bells may have been part of the gear, too!). I like to call them the “NJ Party Crew.”
Sarah Platek’s all-woman crew of MS Support Heroes from New York ran the half marathon with her. Kristen Snapp from Virginia was surrounded by her husband and friends, who participated in the half marathon and 10K. Lauren Hyland and her unicorn blessing (a loving term that harkens back to RAMMS 5 for 5 Enchanted Unicorn Forest theme) came to support our cause! Even those who travelled to Baltimore solo, like Paul Josephson from Spain, Sherry Cyr from Canada, Sheri Paulson from North Dakota, or Mike Barrus from Rhode Island, there was no loneliness because we are RAMMS Family. Plus, we created great energy to help each other cross the finish line and, in at least one, earn a marathon PB like Mike!
Kara Woody is a Boston-qualifying speedster and her goal for Baltimore was to run a conservative half marathon. Gayle Fisher’s goal for Baltimore was to run the half marathon in under two hours. Even though Gayle and Kara are both from Virginia, and had never met, they agreed to run together. It was a great match for these two MS Warriors because their goals perfectly aligned. Running the race together went exactly as planned: Kara ran a successfully conservative half marathon and Gayle crushed her time goal, even winning third place in her age division!
I had a couple of pacers myself but not even remotely for the purpose of setting a new PB! For me, running buddies were helpful during the long uphill stretches (elevation gain was over 1,000 feet for the marathon) and to take my mind off my race-related MS symptoms. I have right leg weakness and when I run, all the effort is performed by my left side. Since only my left leg pushes me forward, I tend to veer to the right. That is why Brian always runs on my right side because it gives me perspective so I can keep running a straight line.
Our friend and MS Warrior Lauren, who lives in Baltimore and has raced the course many times, paced us from mile 20 to 24. After we crested a very steep hill at mile 21, Brian asked, “It’s flat to the finish, right?” He might have been slightly delirious or maybe the elevation chart made the rest of the course look like it was flat over the last five miles. I glanced over at Lauren and her beautiful eyes grew wide as she gently told Brian that, uh, there were still plenty of hills up ahead! We all laughed and Lauren kept our minds off the pain as she entertained us during several of the last miles. That helped us tremendously!
Touching Tribute to MS Warriors
Two weeks prior to Baltimore, I had an interview with Andrew Buerger for his Climb for Hope podcast. I really enjoyed speaking with Andrew and invited him to join RAMMS since he is a huge MS advocate and a Baltimore resident. He accepted my invitation and immediately registered for the 10K. There was so much about his participation that I did not know until I read his post-10K Facebook post.
Here is summary of what he did: During the race, Andrew wore a weighted backpack. He dressed appropriately for the weather and then put on an additional layer of clothing. He asked his night-owl daughter to keep him up half the night before the race.
This is why he did it: because he wanted to know how it feels for people with MS to run.
He carried the weighted backpack to simulate the sluggishness and muscle weakness a person with MS might feel. He wore extra clothes so he would overheat and feel how that slows down his body, the way heat affects a person with MS. And his daughter kept him up all night because Andrew wanted to be exhausted before the race even started.
It was touching to realize the extent to which Andrew tried to feel what it’s like to be a runner with MS.
Virtual Team Report
New RAMMS Activities
As always, our dynamic virtual team joined us in solidarity from their respective hometowns around the world. There were 165 virtual teammates from 20 countries this year. It is because of this special group that we have global impact to inspire more people with MS to exercise. Our virtual teammates engage in a variety of exercise activities for their annual RAMMS event and this year we had several new sports to add to our growing list.
Stephanie Connolly has always done unique things for RAMMS. In 2019, she and her twins dashed through the pastel-colored puffs of powder at the San Diego Color Run 5K. This year, she huffed and puffed during Orangetheory “Hell Week” – an event that sounds absolutely frightening to me!
Over the years, other teammates have done a variety of water sports for their RAMMS events including prone paddling in California, canoeing in Brazil, and kite surfing in The Netherlands. This year, Valerie Suwanseree kayaked for our team around Phewa Lake in Thailand.
Teammates have also cycled different mediums. Indoor: Peloton in New York, air bike in Maryland, and upright bike in Puerto Rico. Outdoor: road bike in Argentina, mountain bike in France, and recumbent bike in North Dakota. But Leah Salmon combined both and took her indoor spinner outside and pedaled for RAMMS – something that can only happen in SoCal’s perfect climate!
Jeanne Manzi in New York smashed it on the pickleball court while Sheri Paulson and her 97-year-old grandfather toppled pins on a bowling alley in Nevada. Sheri is a former North Dakota state bowling champion, but it was her grandfather who was the RAMMS bowling champion when he rolled a strike!
Another champion effort was put in by our Australian duo, Kym and Brad. They participated in an epic four-day, four-peak trail run in the Victorian Alps. Mountains with names like “Feathertop” and “Mystic” made it sound like a walk through the park, but this adventure was not for the faint-of-heart. Kym and Brad encountered steep peaks with 1100 meters of elevation gain, brutally sharp downhills that destroyed their quads, boulders that required they crawl on their hands and knees, and muddy slopes that required the use of safety ropes. MS Warrior Kym carried on, though, and reported that she loved it despite the fear and fatigue.
Teammate Carrie Klypchak, from Texas, has muscle weakness and spasticity that comprises her walking. This past summer, she joined a national study for a newly FDA-approved medical device, the Portable Neuromodulation Stimulator (PoNS). But, just like Kym and Brads’ endurance event, PoNS therapy is not for the faint-of-heart. Under the guidance of a specially trained physical therapist, it is a rigorous 14-week (six days per week) program consisting of gait training, balance exercises and breathing awareness. Carrie was thoroughly exhausted at the end of every week. For her RAMMS event, she accomplished a full marathon of gait training. Every stride was slow and deliberate, and on some occasions, her footsteps were timed to the to the tick of a metronome. It took 7 ½ weeks to complete 26.2 miles – that is what I call a marathoner mentality!
More RAMMS Activities
Teammates from around the globe ran and walked varying distances for their RAMMS event. MS Warriors Christine Arno ran 10K in a lush wooded area in Alberta; Jeana Nozykowski from Texas ran 16 miles as part of her training for Ironman; Corey Adams ran a marathon in the pouring Mississippi rain; and Anita Mehta Iyer did a nighttime stroll along the romantic Singapore River (she had a yoga session earlier that day).
Paul Nieberding coordinated his own triathlon composed of an 800-yard swim, 12K bike and a 5K run that featured inspiring views of the Golden Gate Bridge. Further down the California Coast, Tim Salmon prone paddled in the Pacific Ocean around San Diego (his third year in a row paddling for RAMMS).
For their RAMMS events, Jade Hartland in South Africa and Taniya in Canada used trekking poles. Jade used hers for balance and support as she hiked 2,200 feet up Platteklip Gorge to the top of iconic Table Mountain. The ominous warning sign at the trailhead reads, “Extremely dangerous route with steep rock climbing and difficult navigation. DO NOT attempt this route if inexperienced. Use at own risk.” The day she climbed for RAMMS was hot, as well, so the poles helped when her body overheated and she became less stable.
Taniya, who has an unstable gait due to symptoms like foot drop and muscle weakness, required trekking poles for a walk around her neighborhood. The poles help her stay upright and give her leverage to push off for walking. In this sweet picture of Taniya, she is raising the number one because she successfully completed 1km in 50 minutes. She was particularly happy because she had not been able to exercise for more than a month because of MS fatigue. It was a happy moment for me, too, when she texted the photo!
Worldwide MS Societies
George Nakajima, Secretary General of the Japan MS Society, has been our teammate from day one. Every year, he organizes a challenge walk around the Asakusa district of Tokyo. George always sends scenic pictures posing the team in front of famous monuments like the Sensoji Temple. The group frequently stops to chat with curious onlookers who notice and ask about the matching team shirts. George takes the opportunity to promote our cause and to educate people about the disease. George is truly an MS Support Hero!
For the third year in a row, Gabriela Condeço, Social Worker at the Sociedade Portuguesa de Sclerosis Múltipla (SPEM), encouraged her group to walk or run in solidarity with RAMMS: Unidos somos mais fortes (United we are stronger). This year, our MS Warriors in Coimbra did an organized trail event which offered the bonus of earning shiny die-cut medals. It’s all about the bling no matter what language is spoken!
Swiss MS Society made their RAMMS debut this year! Geneva Chapter President Berge Ghazarian and Treasurer Valerie Kupferschmid are both MS Warriors and did their RAMMS event in a swimming pool. Valerie called it “aquagym” which somehow sounds more intriguing than our American version of “water aerobics!” Either way, it is another new activity we can add to our list of RAMMS sports. But, more importantly, two new friends have now been added to our team.
Fundraising, Stats & Thank You
Fundraising
Our RAMMS fundraiser is under MS Society’s DIY (Do It Yourself) MS platform. We were in “competition” (because you know I’m competitive!) with golf tournaments, a couple of guys running 100 miles (they don’t have MS) and a motorcycle event. We placed 12th out of 76 athletic teams with a total of $29,087 raised for 2022. (We have raised over $121,900 so far from our five events 2018-2022.)
Our fundraising was fueled by MS Support Hero Ralph Hansen from North Dakota, who raised over $6,300. A few of us raised over $1,000: Caryl Pawlusiak, Allie Hogan, Michele Meyers, Cindy Rose and me. RAMMS is made up of a lot of movers and shakers. Many teammates already manage their own Bike MS, Walk MS or DIY teams, or they fundraise for other charities. I am very appreciative to every single person who spent time and energy fundraising for RAMMS!
I am filled with gratitude for all the donors who flooded our fundraising page. Several teammates made magnanimous donations: Ralph Hansen, Kristen and Cameron Snapp, Nancy Lee, The Earp Family, Koreen Burrow and David Fox, Jeff Urschler and Cindy Eisenlohr, Jeanne Manzi, and a couple of $1,000 anonymous donations. Plus, I want to give a huge shoutout to Gayle Fisher’s sister! Every dollar is a step closer to a cure.
Furthermore, we held team fundraising events, such as our perennially fun and sometimes crazily-costumed RAMMS 5 for 5. We organized a couple of zoom trivia night fundraisers, which was a fun way to “see” one another. Possibly the most interesting, at least among NFL fans, was our RAMMS Confidence Football Pool. Eighteen people played with a buy-in of $25. More than 50% of the money went to our DIY MS and the balance was used for $10 prizes to the weekly 1st place winners (and some winners have donated back the $10 to DIY MS — a win-win!).
By the Numbers
- 248 total teammates
- 128 MS Warriors and 120 MS Support Heroes (which included 10 people from the MS Society Technology Team)
- 83 teammates met in Baltimore, MD
- 165 were virtual teammates from 6 continents: Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, North America and South America
- Virtual teammates represented 20 Countries: Argentina, Austria, Australia, Brazil, Canada, England, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, Wales and USA
- 39 US States + DC: AK, AL, AZ, CA, CO, FL, IA, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MS, MT, NC, ND, NE, NH, NJ, NV, NY, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, TN, TX, UT, VA, WA, WI and WY
- 3 Canadian provinces: AB, NB andON
- Worldwide MS organizations that promoted RAMMS: Japan, Portugal, Switzerland and USA
Thank You
All of this organization could not be done without the help of many players.
As mentioned above Hanger Clinic and Thuasne co-sponsored our fabulous post-race celebration. They also sponsored our premium quality shirts, plus drop-shipping. The shirts are really valued because we all know how uncomfortable those cheap-o running shirts with rough seams can be. To boot, we were certainly the best-looking team out there on race morning and around the world!
Mailing team shirts is a huge job and I am exceptionally grateful to Hanger Clinic and Thuasne for funding drop-shipments so the shirt vendor could send shirts directly to teammates in the US and Canada. It saved Brian some work, too. This year, he mailed out fifty packages and went to the post office six times, which is less than previous years. Still, the vendor made errors with some of the shipments and Brian had to rush out replacement shirts.
Designing the team shirt is another big task. The shirt vendor provides design samples, but they were basic and did not seem special enough for our team’s 5th anniversary. I scoured designs online and bought the vector file of the ram. I still had to work a lot with the vendor on the mock-up. You’d think it would be easy to plop the graphics onto a template, but the computer person missed some of the finer details. If I did not look at things with a critical eye, our ram would only have one horn and the logos would have been annoyingly misaligned. The shirt color also required some effort to find the right pantone colors for the red-orange to light-orange gradation.
For the second year, MS Support Heroes Adam and Allie Hogan of Full Implant Choice in Virginia Beach sponsored shipping costs for all those domestic and international packages that Brian mailed. Furthermore, the couple sponsored awesome team-branded visors to top off our running outfits. There was plenty of sun in Baltimore and those visors shaded our eyes in style!
The team is lucky to have backing from the MS Society; they help me behind the scenes on so many things. Examples: sponsoring team dinners and shirts when funding is tight, using their legal team when the Richmond team hotel tried to stick me with a $6000+ hotel bill, writing the registration instruction page for the website when my cog fog was bad, providing local support help at the event location, promoting the team on social channels, and more…. I am always grateful for their unwavering support!
Next Event
Our 6th annual RAMMS event will be at the Columbus Marathon, Half Marathon and 5K in Ohio on October 14-15, 2023. Plus, as always, we will have our worldwide virtual team. Contact us at runamyelinmyshoes@gmail.com to find out how to join the team.