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Mike
Higgins
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| About
half of the U.Va. marathon team stops on the steps of the
Old Medical School. The runners, who come from all walks of
life, will put their best feet forward to benefit the Children’s
Heart Center in the Health System. |
Marathon
team to run for Children's Heart Center
Their
goals range from finishing first to just finishing. But one aim
will unite the 50 members of the U.Va. team running in the Marine
Corps Marathon on the morning of Oct. 28, when they leave the
starting line: raising at least $50,000 to support the Virginia
Children’s Heart Center, part of U.Va.’s Children’s
Medical Center.
The
long road to one of the nation’s most competitive marathons
has been full of progressively difficult training practices and
grueling 20-mile practice runs. The backgrounds of the U.Va. team
members run the gamut, from lab technicians and deans to secretaries
and surgeons, business people and lawyers. With each runner setting
a personal best fund-raising goal of at least $1,000 each, the
team hopes to make the $50,000 goal.
About
16,000 runners from throughout the world are expected for the
26.2 mile race, which begins and ends at the Iwo Jima Monument
in Arlington.
Dr.
Thomas Massaro, chief of staff for the Health
System and an avid runner, said he hopes that the U.Va. team
effort will be an annual event. “It’s a great race,”
he said. “Maggie Lebo and George Rich have been very enthusiastic
leaders of this group. They conceived of the idea and helped organize
the team registration. They managed the great support team, which
includes Mark Lorenzoni, Bob Wilder and others.”
Lebo,
an operating room nurse, said that everyone is united in their
desire to help the Children’s Heart Center. Formed two years
ago as a partnership between U.Va. and private practices in the
state, the VCHC has become the pre-eminent network for pediatric
heart care in Virginia. The center works closely with private
practice pediatric cardiologists in Richmond, the Shenandoah Valley
and Southwest Virginia to provide coordinated diagnosis and care
of pediatric heart patients. The congenital cardiac surgery program,
based at the CMC, and headed by 20-year veteran Dr. Irving Kron,
treated more than 200 patients last year.
The
CMC has the only pediatric heart and lung transplant program in
the state and will soon add another congenital heart disease surgeon,
as well as another interventional cardiologist and a pediatric
electrophysiologist. The center already maintains a network of
educational resources for families and their doctors through a
family resource library and a Web site at www.med.virginia.edu/virginiachildrensheart.
For
information on how to contribute to the U.Va. Marine Corps Marathon
Team, call George Rich at 977-0402 or Pat Belisle of the U.Va.
Health System Development Office at 924-8432.
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From The Link
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