As I lay in my bed watching “Friends” last night, I realized I had seen that episode over five times, so I let my thoughts wonder. I thought mostly about what I was going to do this weekend, a party perhaps, or go to the movies… or watch Netflix, the possibilities were endless.

Then it hit me: I am overwhelmingly unproductive lately. I called up to my roommate, Alpha Delta Pi member Myranda Mcafee, on the top bunk to ask if she was doing anything fun this weekend.

“I get to be Raggedy Ann this year in the Ron-A-Thon!” she said enthusiastically. Immediately I dismissed the idea from my mind because I am not a morning person and I knew from last year that the ADPI Ron-a-thon is a morning event. But Myranda continued to ramble on endlessly about how excited she was.

“I’m gonna dance and get everyone pumped with Kim Potter, she’s going to be the lion with me,” she said. I tried to block her out but I started to feel guilty; I’m a particularly bad listener.

“You could come you know…” she said after I didn’t respond for a few minutes.

I rolled the thought over in my mind, could I really run this?

“Okay I promise I’ll go,” I quickly committed in a moment of spontaneity before I could talk myself out of it.

The Ron-a-thon is ADPI’s second annual 5K walk/run but I think I can handle it because now I have motivation.

“We sponsor the Ronald McDonald House in Cleveland, our chapter does, and basically it’s a home for families that have sick children,” Philanthropy Chari Angela Miranda said. “So this is like a house really close to the Cleveland Clinic where people can stay with their parents, their families, their kids.”

The money people spend registering to run in the race will benefit the Ronald McDonald House.

“It costs $20 for a family to stay there for a night but they never turn people down,” Miranda said. “That’s where organizations like us come in.”

So the $15 I spend to run the race is kind of like my charity for this year, or at least this weekend!

“Last year we made over $1,000,” Miranda continued “I know we had about 150 people participate.        

This year our goal is 200 people, so whatever that produces money-wise is our goal.”

I was feeling pretty good about being one of those hopefully 200 people, but I still asked what was so rewarding about running the 5K and as Angela so poetically put it, “Every step that you take you know it’s for a purpose; it’s for the kids and it’s honestly just such a great cause and it’s worth it so I hope that people do it.”

That’s when I knew I was in it to win it; well I was in it to walk it at least!