Help Liyang raise money

To celebrate Calgary Marathon's 60th anniversary, I will be joining some friends and attempting to set a GWR to raise $60,000 for MitoCanada. We will attempt 'The Fastest Half Marathon by a Linked Team'. The current record is 1:26 and we will attempt 1:19 with a group of 15+ tethered runners! This will be a massive challenge but we are up for it.

For more info on MitoCanada's progress see below and thank you for your continued support! 

Look how far we have come!!

About Mito:
For those not familiar with MitoCanada, it was founded back in 2009 shortly after Blaine's (our team captain) son Evan was diagnosed with mitochondrial disease. At that time there was no organization in Canada supporting families impacted by Mito. They were completely alone. The Penny family got together with some other families and started MitoCanada to raise awareness, education, support families and fund research. 

Research: 
MitoCanada has raised over $4 million to support research and programs across the country, including right here at UCalgary. Before MitoCanada existed, there were no clinical trials in Canada. Thanks to MitoCanada's work, we have organized the clinical and patient community to attract numerous clinical trials, including right here in Calgary.

New technologies like mitochondrial donation, cell and gene therapies and mitochondrial transplant show exiting promise!

When MitoCanada was started in 2009, it took 2+ years to get a diagnosis, and now can be achieved in less than 2 days, thanks to the advancements in next gen dna sequencing, which was some of the early funding we provided right here at the ACH.

New Programs:
In 2022, MitoScholars was launched, a scholarship program that helps students living with mito pursue their post-secondary education by reducing the financial barriers they face. MitoCanada has awarded 10 scholarships over the last two years and looks forward to awarding another 4 scholarships in 2024.

A NEW adaptive bike program (in partnership with CP Association of Calgary) gets mitoKids moving to help build strength, endurance and independence… and stimulate the production of those healthy mitochondria! MitoCanada has come a long ways, but there is still a long ways to go. 

We appreciate any help you are willing to offer to continuing pushing us forward!