First of all, please understand I am all for raising money for a cause. This is noble and appropriate. People raise money for all kinds of worthy causes and in all kinds of interesting ways. I have not raised money for a specific cause in a long time, but I support several causes through my financial contributions. Furthermore, I have started donating blood. I've donated several times this year, and this being my first year donating.
Now, I've been running for a long time, but have been doing triathlon longer. When I started running and doing triathlon I don't recall either of these things being huge fund raising activities. I do recall them being platforms for competing and participating, and for being active however. They still are around for these reasons, but not exclusively.
Having said this, I'm not saying there is no room for people to participate and raise money for a cause in the process. Where my problem comes in is that there is now such an influx of fund raising opportunities that capitalize on endurance events. Understand however,in and of itself, this is NOT the problem. This is only part of the problem FOR ME. It's a problem because I start to feel a little guilty for competing and participating solely for the purpose of competing and participating when so many are using these events as fund raising opportunities. Fortunately, this is NOT an overwelming feeling and I don't dwell on it, and I don't lose sleep over it. I know it is perfectly acceptable to go to a triathlon, or the like, and simply compete or participate. In fact, at its core, this is what the events are for.
It may appear that there is a simple and obvious solution to rid me of the guilt I have and it follows the adage, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em". Of course I'm not trying to "beat 'em" but "joining 'em" isn't as simple as it may seem. You see, at this point, after having done swimming, cycling, and running for so long for the purpose of competing and participating and finding complete joy in this, I have a hard time asking for money to do what I love. It seems this would be similar to me(a third grade teacher) collecting money for a cause (in addition to my normal wage) for teaching students. I would expect somebody to say, "You are going to be doing that anyway, so what's the big deal?"
It seems to me that if I'm going to be doing a "feat" of some kind and using it to raise money, I should be doing something extraordinary. For me to raise money using swimming, cycling, or running for ME is not extraordinary by itself. On the other hand, if a person who has never done a marathon (or 5k for that matter) announces that s/he is going to do one of these to raise money for (insert charity here), that carries way more meaning than for me to do that because it's what I already do.
I have thought about this...more then I would like to admit. On some level, I would like to raise money for a cause by doing a triathlon, but agian, it seems silly to me for the reasons noted above.
One thing I have considered is to do an iron distance triathlon (2.4mi swim/112 mi bike/26.2 mi run), but to do it across Gun Lake (a large local lake in our community), cycle around Barry County (the county in which we live), and run from one point to finish in the Middleville High School football/track stadium in efforts to raise money for books for our school's library, or money for playground equipment, or whatever the schools need. This to me seems interesting and out of the ordinary. In this way, I'm using the skills I have and but I'm using them in a more extraordinary circumstance.
Again, I am not saying people should not use swimming, cycling, running, or triathlon to raise money, I'm just saying, it doesn't feel right for ME. So, I'll continue to support causes and the people supporting causes through these events, but I can't justify me raising money to do something I love unless, as mentioned above, I do it with a twist to make it more interesting.
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