Details:
Run in the Dark, a global fundraising running movement with the mission of curing paralysis in our lifetime, will return to Luxembourg City (and various other cities around the world) on Wednesday 9 November 2022; the starting line is near Big Beer Brauerei in Luxembourg-Clausen at 20:00.
Every year in mid-November, some 25,000 runners in about 50 cities worldwide don their running shoes and flashing armbands and light up the night sky as they run in the dark to raise funds to help cure paralysis. Official Run in the Dark events are taking place in Dublin, Cork, Belfast (all on 9 November) and London (on 16 November) this year, in addition to various pop-up events planned throughout Europe (including in Luxembourg), Australia, Asia and the Americas. Virtual events may also take place in areas where there is no live event (or for participants looking for greater flexibility regarding the route and date/time).
Participants choose to run either 5k or 10k, with entry revenue going to the Mark Pollock Trust, which organises the event with the support of "champions" and volunteers worldwide, and fundraising going to the event's charity partner Collaborative Cures, which was established in 2020 to scale Mark Pollock's work to bring people together to cure paralysis in our lifetime.
Background
In 2009, Irish explorer Mark Pollock became the first blind person to race to the South Pole. One year later, he narrowly escaped death after falling from a second-floor window; however, the fall resulted in a broken back and the damage to his spinal cord left him paralysed. Since then, Mark, now an international motivational speaker, has made it his mission to cure paralysis with the help of robotic technology. Mark's friends initially set up the Mark Pollock Trust to help cover his treatment costs and launched the first Run in the Dark in Dublin, Ireland in 2011. The following year, Mark took his first steps with the help of his Ekso Bionic robotic legs as part of a pioneering study aimed at fast-tracking a cure for paralysis; within a couple of years, he had regained enough voluntary control to move with a robotic exoskeleton and has since taken hundreds of thousands of steps.
Since 2011, Run in the Dark has expanded to some 50 cities around the globe, with more than 120,000 runners having taken part so far, with the goal of raising money to find a cure for spinal cord injury.
Run in the Dark Luxembourg
In 2014, just three years after the first edition in Dublin, Run in the Dark champion Jane Murray set up a pop-up event in Luxembourg. As Jane explained to Chronicle.lu, she became friends with Mark Pollock at university and wished to support him and his cause from here in Luxembourg. She described the first Run in the Dark Luxembourg as a "sell-out success" and noted that the pop-up event has been growing ever since. The pre-COVID-19 edition in 2019 brought together some 2,000 runners in Luxembourg and raised about €38,000. In 2020, in the context of the pandemic, Run in the Dark went ahead as a virtual event around the world. In 2021, the Luxembourg pop-up event was the only live Run in the Dark worldwide.
Registrations: https://www.runinthedark.org/luxembourg/. The entry fee is €27.
Venue: Luxembourg City
Organiser: Run in the Dark
Price: €27 (entry fee)
Reservations: See website
URL: For details, see https://www.runinthedark.org/luxembourg/
