My name is Hans van Leeuwen, I'm a 33-year old scientist currently living in California. On December 10, 2006 (the day after the U2 concert in Honolulu), I have participated in the Honolulu Marathon. To make this experience even more useful I donated $2 to Keep A Child Alive for each mile that I completed ($52 in total). KEEP A CHILD ALIVE is an urgent response to the AIDS pandemic ravaging Africa. With 25 million already dead, the disease continues, wiping out whole societies, threatening economic infrastructure and creating tragic devastation in the family structure.
I started a fundraiser for Keep A Child Alive, and received an overwhelming response from people who wanted to help the poorest children of this planet, who do not have access to anti-retroviral treatment. See my guest book for the contributions that were made. If you would like to help out too, please consider donating to this wonderful organization. Just click on "Donate" on their secure web site:
http://keepachildalive.org
To motivate me to get to the finish line on December 10, people donated money for each mile that I would complete. The money that was raised for Keep A Child Alive in this marathon fundraiser can be seen below:
Updated: Friday, December 22, 2006
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It was my first marathon, and I had trained for many months. On December 2nd I arrived in Honolulu, and had some relaxing days before the U2 'madness' really started on December 6th. I finished the last week of my training program in the warm and humid Hawaiian climate. It was good that I had arrived a week before the marathon, so that I had some days to get used to the different conditions.
The two nights before the marathon I had slept an average of 2 hours, due to the line up for the U2 concert at the Aloha Stadium on December 9. On Friday night I was going to use an inflatable mattress, but soon it was punctured, and that made sleeping kind of hard; in fact I hardly slept at all that night. On Saturday, the concert was fantastic, first Rocko and the Devils, then Pearl Jam, followed by U2. Usually I jump a lot during the concert, and it was not easy to contain myself this time. However, I had to spare my legs for the marathon, which was going to start 5 hours after the concert.
After the show, we found the fellow U2 fan who had given us a ride to the stadium; and she was willing to give us a ride again. That was so kind! We got back to the hotel, where I quickly ate something, and then it was time to sleep....for 2 hours. We hurried out of the hotel, and took a taxi to the start line. Thousands of marathon runners were walking through the streets to line up at the start. I positioned myself in the section for runners who estimated to finish in 4.5 to 5 hours, and found some others who had been at the U2 concert too.
5 a.m. The start of the marathon, with fireworks ligthing the early morning sky in Honolulu. This was it! All the months of training, and now the moment was here. I pressed the play button on my iPod, and started to run. The exhaustion and extreme tiredness were gone immediately. I had a mission to complete, and nothing would stop me from doing that.
It went very well; the result was as follows: overall ranking: 5,782, division ranking: 534, finish time: 4:44 hours (split 10k time: 0:57, split half marathon time: 1:57, split 30k time: 2:45). After 20 miles (approx. 30k) I injured my knee at a drinking stop, and had to walk the remaining 6 miles with an ice pack on my knee. The marathon was an amazing experience, and I'm looking forward to the next one!
Some snap shots taken during the marathon.
Many thanks to those who supported this initiative!
Hans
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Disclaimer: I am not collecting any donations; all donations should be made directly to the Keep A Child Alive organization. The purpose of this website is direct people to the official Keep A Child Alive web site as part of the fundraiser for my participation in the Honolulu Marathon on December 10, 2006.
KEEP A CHILD ALIVE is an urgent response to the AIDS pandemic ravaging Africa. With 25 million already dead, the disease continues, wiping out whole societies, threatening economic infrastructure and creating tragic devastation in the family structure.
There are currently 12 million AIDS Orphans in Africa alone. How much longer will we sit by while millions of people die from a treatable disease?
Anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment has transformed the lives of people with AIDS in the West, returning them from sickness to health. But less than 5% of Africans with AIDS have access to these life-saving drugs.
Keep A Child Alive is a committed partner of the One Campaign. If you want to take action on the issue of AIDS and poverty in Africa this is how to do it. We need your signatures and your support to end extreme poverty which exacerbates the spread of HIV/AIDS. After all people need food and clean water with which to take their medicines, just like we do.
