Thanks for visiting this page! Please read on to learn more about all of our Running for Nana endeavors.

[PS – If you’re looking for information about the 2020 Race, click here].

2019: 2nd Annual ACT Team Running for Nana!

In 2019, 38 people joined our Second Annual Achieving Cures Together team at the Colfax Marathon weekend to “Run for Nana” and fight back against C. difficile, plus many more who came to cheer everyone on. Folks joined us from Colorado, Texas, Illinois, and Minnesota, including the founder of ACT, Peter Westerhaus, who ran the 10-mile race! By some great coincidence, Peter and I finished our races right around the same time.

The team grew so much last year that we qualified for our very own Achieving Cures Together tent in the Charity Village. It was an indescribable feeling to look around and see so many people that I love so much crowded together in those blue ACT shirts, getting to know each other and spreading awareness of C. diff. She would be so grateful to each and every one of you and absolutely floored by the progress you’re supporting to help end C. difficile.

Thanks to the incredible generosity of so many, we met and slightly surpassed our fundraising goal of $20,000! This meant that to date, because of people like you, we have raised over $80,000 for Achieving Cures Together and the Microbiota Therapeutics Program. These dollars are helping to fund meaningful, life-changing treatments for C. difficile and other awful conditions. Please visit the About page to learn more.

2018: 1st Annual ACT Team Running for Nana!

In 2018, we joined forces again to create the first ever Achieving Cures Together (ACT) team for the Colfax Marathon Weekend in Denver, CO! In total, 16 incredible people participated in either the 5K race on Saturday or the half marathon race on Sunday, and many more attended the races in support. We had runners join us from as far away as Texas and Minnesota, and we were able to gather together after the 5K race on Saturday.

2017: TC 10 Mile and Disney Wine and Dine

In the fall of 2017, we joined forces with Achieving Cures Together (ACT) to increase our impact. ACT was founded in 2016 by Peter Westerhaus, a recipient of the lifesaving FMT procedure from the University of Minnesota. Peter started ACT with one goal in mind: to support research that will help find cures.

Together, my mom and I ran the Twin Cities 10-Mile race in October with the ACT Team. Then in November, it was time for a back-to-back 10K and half marathon at the Disney World Wine and Dine weekend. Thanks to the support of incredible people like you, 2017 was another big year in the fight against C. diff.  Through partnership with ACT, the University of Minnesota had successfully treated over 100 patients suffering with recurrent C. difficile infection with the encapsulated microbiota that could not be cured with standard antibiotics. And, it was done at no cost to the patient.

Beginning in 2018, the team began providing the capsule treatment to the Veterans Administration to carry out a multi-center, placebo-controlled trial to treat C. difficile. Through partnership with ACT and supporters like you, the hope is that they will be able to make the treatment widely available to similar patients across the country, and also to continue exploring uses for the treatment beyond C. difficile. For more on Round Two, please click here.

 

We truly couldn’t have done this or crossed any finish line without you, and are so deeply grateful to each of you who continue to make this dream come true.

2016: Grandma’s Marathon

In June 2016, I ran Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth, MN to fight against C. difficile in celebration of my best friend, my Nana. With you, we partnered with Dr. Khoruts and the University of Minnesota’s Microbiota Therapeutics Program (MTP) – one of the leading C. diff research centers in the country. With the help of philanthropic support like yours, the MTP was able to bring Dr. Matthew Hamilton, PhD, back to their team. Dr. Hamilton previously worked with the MTP to develop capsules of the freeze-dried fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT). Like the FMT procedure delivered through a colonoscopy, the capsules are used to fight C. difficile, and are even more simple, as they can be taken in one session without any special prep. At the time, the encapsulated preparation had already helped to cure ~60 people from otherwise refractory, recurrent C. difficile. To read more about Round One, click here.