BY JARROD McALEESE
JAKE Ward describes himself as “just an ordinary guy from Cranbourne”.
However, in November this year Ward, senior co-captain of the Lyndhurst Lightning Football Club, will be completing an extraordinary feat — a 1500km run from the Gold Coast back home to Cranbourne through which he aims to raise over $50,000 for the National Breast Cancer Foundation.
Breast cancer has struck Ward’s family twice, and it is these losses that motivated Ward to join the fight against the cruel illness.
“It all started off when my cousin Samantha passed away from breast cancer; she was only 31 at the time.
“A few years after that, my aunty on the other side of my family had breast cancer and passed away during recovery.
“I jumped on and thought, well I’m young and I can do something. I didn’t really know what I was good at, so I decided to run,” Ward said.
The run will be Ward’s third campaign, after a non-stop 19 hour, 110 km run across the City of Casey in 2013 and a marathon 1000km hike from Sydney to Melbourne in 2014.
And Ward said that his preparation was as much about mastering his mind as it was about conditioning his body.
“I play football all year, I lift weights and go to the gym, but it’s just about building up mentally. There’s only so much running you can do.
“As I learned during the Sydney to Melbourne run, though I trained three to four times a day in the lead-up, within the fourth day my body broke down, and if I didn’t prepare mentally it could’ve been over after 200km,” Ward said.
In between his daily treks, Ward meets and greets locals in the various towns he enters, sometimes at the expense of proper recovery, he admits.
“If I finish later in the day, the recovery becomes less because I want to promote in the town that I am in. Sometimes, I sacrifice recovery to gain awareness of the run,” Ward said.
Ward has recently reached $10,000 in donations, and is hoping to raise $51,725.95, a special figure for Ward, having raised close to 50k in his previous two runs.
“It’s just amazing to see the generosity of people, it’s $10 from one person, $5 from another.
“The target is a precise number; it would mean over three runs I have raised $100,000,” Ward said.
Ward greatly appreciates all donations and is particularly on the lookout for a car sponsor. Donations can be made at https://nbcfsports.everydayhero.com/au/jakewardgc and Ward can be contacted on his Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/jakeward1500kms.
