If you’ve never thought of running a marathon, maybe now is the time. The motto for the "Be Bright Pink" Chicago marathon race team is "If you can run a mile, you can run a marathon." It sounds simple enough but after covering the marathon now for the past five years with NBC Chicago, I was not completely sold when they asked me to help corral up the runners and lead their team this year. 

You see, I'm not a runner. I'll use a treadmill, run enough to complete a triathlon, but running a marathon was not on my bucket list. However, like my recent climb up Mt. Kilamanjaro in the name of Ovarian cancer, I felt honored to be a leader on this team too.

Bright Pink is a non-profit organization which helps support the mission of enlightening and empowering young women to be proactive with their breast and ovarian health. So like the climb, I had to run full force to be lucky enough to help inspire, run, laugh and raise awareness for this amazing cause. We are furiously training now, preparing for the marathon in October.

Along the way, I'm sure the treadmill and my gym shoes will be my other training pals in addition to my Team Bright Pink. All the resources from Fitness Formula Club’s running coaches, Novacare's therapists for preventive of common overuse injuries, and sisterhood as wells as fun from Guiliana Rancic's team at Fab Fit Fun are sure to make this experience bold and brilliant. There's still time to donate or join the running experience at www.teambrightpink.org.

If you are considering running a marathon, I really encourage you to do it now rather than later! And if you can run for a great cause in the process, I promise you won’t regret it.

There are marathons all over the world this year including:

5/19/12            Great Wall Marathon                                                     Beijing

5/27/12            Edinburgh Marathon                                                     Edinburgh

6/16/12            Nordmarka Forest Marathon  Oslo                               Norway

6/21/12            The Amazing Maasai Marathon                                    Mt. Kenya      

7/8/12              Rio Marathon                                                                Rio de Janeiro

10/7/12            Verona Marathon                                                          Verona

You can get a full list of events around the world with this marathon directory.

Have you already committed to run-raising this year? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!