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Many of you have participated in Got the Nerve over the years and know the story behind it. For those who signed up for the first time, you need to know how personal this is to me and how much it pains me to have to cancel.

I was a healthy, active US Marine at 21 when I was diagnosed with Adrenomyeloneuropathy, a degenerative nerve disorder that eventually took from me my ability to walk. I started Got the Nerve in 2004 as a means of raising funds to research the disease in the hope that there could someday be a cure for me and others who live with it, or will someday in the future. So that funds raised through this race stayed in our community, helping our neighbors, I started the IM ABLE Foundation in 2007. Our mission is to remove obstacles that prevented people in the mid-Atlantic region from getting active, to enable and empower athletes with physical, cognitive, and/or behavioral challenges. Thousands of athletes with challenges of all kinds have redefined what they thought possible, accomplishing feats they never dreamed they could do.

This race and your participation in it, makes is possible for the IM ABLE Foundation to provide, throughout the entire year, athletic opportunities to people who would otherwise never have them.

Cancelling Got the Nerve means that, this upcoming year, there may be fewer opportunities for those we serve. Knowing that I’m going to have to look someone in the eye and say that we can’t help them, all because of events going on in this world that are out of our control, that is real. It is not something I take lightly.

What is going on is bigger than one race. It’s scary and uncertain out there right now. People’s lives depend on decisive leadership and this is a call we feel we must make to do our part in making this as short and painless as we possibly can.

BEFORE 5PM ON FRIDAY, APRIL 3RD, please let us know what to do with your registration fee. Please check the email associated with your registration to let us know what you’d like done with your registration fee. Before you proceed, I ask that you please consider converting your fee to a donation to the Foundation. Your support means we can provide expensive adaptive equipment for people with physical challenges, IM FIT adaptive fitness programming for people with challenges of all kinds, and Operation Lead from the Front for Veterans and children with challenges.

I thank you for your understanding.

Stay safe, stay active,