Sydenham Man To Run for NICU
People living in the vicinity of Railton Road, south of Sydenham are used to seeing Willem Sagriff running up and down the back roads early in the morning, and they will be seeing more and more of that over the next few months.
Willem lives in the area with his wife Elizabeth and their young daughter Lola. Elizabeth is from Sydenham and Willem joined her when they got married. He is originally from Foxboro, north of Belleville.
About 4 or 5 years ago, Elizabeth got him into running with the idea of competing in the local triathlon. But while Willem took to running, he did not really enjoy the swimming that is part of a triathlon, so he focused on running for distance instead of triathlon training.
This has led him to run the half marathon and marathon distances, and over a year ago he attempted a 100km run on the Cataraqui Trail.
“At about the 50km mark, I developed a knee issue, and although I kept going, I could only get to about 75km before I had to stop,” he recalls of that run.
When Elizabeth was in the maternity ward at the Kingston General Hospital (KGH) site of the Kingston Health Sciences Centre (KHSC) having Lola, without incident, they saw how some other families had more difficult deliveries, premature and otherwise, and Willem decided he wanted to help raise money, to help the hospital obtain more cutting edge equipment.
He decided to mount what he is calling the "100km NICU Challenge" in a bid to raise funds for life-saving equipment (Cerebral Oximetry Monitors) for the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Kingston General Hospital.
The run is scheduled for October 3rd, a good time of year for a long run because it is past the heat of the summer and before blizzard season, and Willem's plan is to run the entire distance at the track at the Point.
To complete the run, he will need to go around the 400 metre track 250 times, and while he is doing that he will be inviting people to run with him over smaller distances, or to walk while he runs.
He is working with the University Hospitals Kingston Foundation on the mechanics of the fundraising effort, and a donation page is being set up. If the run raises more than the $6,000 target, the rest of the money will go to help with the purchase of additional equipment for the neo-natal icu.
“Whatever we can raise to help families and babies who need it, is great,” Willem said.
In the meantime, he is starting his training period for the run. He runs 8-10 kilometres, 5 days a week (sometimes on a treadmill in the winter months), before heading to Kingston where he works full time in a body shop. He also does a longer 15-20km run over the weekend.
This will ramp up to 15-20km regular runs and a longer weekly run, all the way up to a 60km run, before he tapers his training in advance of October 3.
So, give Willem a wave if you see him running on Railton or Sydenham Road this spring and summer, and look for more information online and in these pages, about how to support the “100km NICU Challenge”.
