I’m very proud to be a member of the Yummy Mummy Club‘s official Warrior Dash team next month.  Fellow blogger, Sharon DeVellis, and I are competing for the best time and you can bet on me (or on Sharon, if you prefer those odds). Here, in Sharon’s words, is the inspiration for our bet and the crazy humiliation prize we’ve committed to.  As originally  posted at www.speedskatingmom.com. Heather Hamilton is pretty much the bravest person I know.  She experienced an unimaginable loss on March 10, 2011 when her beautiful three year old son, Zack, passed away.

Zack was born in September 2007 with a congenital heart defect known as Total Anomalous Pulmonary Venous Drainage (TAPVD). At two and a half weeks old, he underwent a procedure to repair his heart. Zack’s survival at that time, was the first of many miracles to come in his life.

Since then, Heather has worked tirelessly to raise money for a special room at York Central Hospital decorated with Zack’s favourite character – Elmo.  The goal was $25,000 and she reached it within a short amount of time.  But Heather’s not stopping there because it didn’t seem right to her that one child would get a special room and the others who are in the hospital wouldn’t so she’s now working on raising money to provide two new cribs for the Pediatric Unit ($5000 each), new equipment, parent supplies, arts and craft cupboard and décor for the five remaining rooms.

Heather walks through life with a grace, kindness and inner strength one can only strive for and she’s doing it in the face of an adversity I can’t even imagine. If you watch this interview with Heather, done on Mother’s Day only two months after Zack passed away, you’ll understand what I mean.

I’ve wanted to help Heather in some way but didn’t know how.

Through the YummyMummyClub.ca I’ve gotten to meet and know another amazing woman, Dara Duff-Bergeron, otherwise known as Sweaty Mummy.  She’s a personal trainer in Toronto and I adore her.  She has a no-nonsense style mixed with a respectful consideration to the women she’s training.  She gets that we fall off the wagon or that we’re sometimes tired or maybe we’re just hormonal and that bag of chocolate was calling our name. And like Heather, she’s guided by kindness.

So when I emailed her and said the two of us should go head-to-head in the Warrior Dash to raise funds for Zack’s room, she didn’t hesitate.

And that’s exactly what we’re going to do. Dara and I are turning the Warrior Dash into a competition to raise money for Zack’s Room.

Speed Skating Mom vs. Sweaty Mummy – the best time wins.

We’re making it pretty simple – you place a minimum bet of $5.00 for who you think is going to win and all the money raised goes to Zack’s Room. $5.00!  That’s like a coffee nowadays.  And the maximum could be as much as you want.

How do you place the bet?  There’s two ways:

1) You can send the money via PayPal using my email address sharond@cogeco.ca.  But I totally get that you may be a little hesitant to send someone you don’t know money to a PayPal account so if you are, you can use Option No. 2.

2) Leave a comment below with who you’re betting on and how much you want to bet and I’ll email you – we’ll figure it out the whole payment thing together.  I’m trusting like that.

And just because we wanted it to be a real race, where both of us tried our hardest to win, we came up with this.

The loser has to recreate their childhood bathing suit picture as an adult and send it out to the internet world.

I’m not gonna lie….it’s going to be a close race.  Dara may be super fit but I’m all hard working and have perseverance.  Plus I hate humiliation.

I’ll be keeping track of the money raised on a separate page and update it as the bets come in.  And if you ever have any questions, you can always leave a comment or email me.

So what say you…. let’s raise money for Zack’s Room and honour a very special little boy.

Email Dara to place a bet (even $5.00 helps!) on Sharon or Dara.

OR

Comment below and we’ll contact you to arrange your bet.