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After losing his job and his vision, Lee Shayler walked one mile every hour for 42 days straight to raise money for sight-saving research. He and his family brought in more than $15,000.
Last spring, while Lee was taking on formidable challenges that many people never face during their entire lifetimes, he decided to set the bar even higher. To raise money for retinal research and test his own mettle, Lee embarked on a 42-day, 1,000-mile walk. While walking 24 miles per day for 42 days is no small feat, Lee’s event had a difficult twist: He walked one mile every hour of every day. So, whether it was 2 a.m. or 2 p.m., Lee walked a mile during that hour. Because of the hourly mile requirement, he never slept for more than an hour at a time over that 42-day period.
Lee walked through parks in his hometown of Highlands Ranch, Colorado, from April 25 until June 5, through a variety of weather conditions including: snow, hail, rain, and high winds. When he completed the event, temperatures were in the upper 90s. Lee was following in the footsteps of Robert Barclay Allardice, a notable Scottish pedestrian, who made the first 1,000-hour, 1,000-mile walk for 1,000 guineas in 1809. Lee actually learned about the walk from a 2009 BBC radio broadcast, which reported on Richard Dunwoody, a Brit who had recently completed Allardice’s original challenge. Lee is himself a Brit, who emigrated to the U.S. in 1999.
Hopeful and excited about the progress of retinal research, Lee says, “The more we can do this, and the longer we can do this, the more we can improve our situations. We are looking to do the walk again, in some form or another, to raise money for research that may benefit me and future generations. I am also glad that we made hundreds of people aware of the important research the Foundation is funding.” Click here to donate to Lee’s walk. He is still taking contributions and appreciates your support of sight-saving research. |
Lee Shayler calls it the double whammy. In December 2009, he lost the little remaining vision he had to advancing retinitis pigmentosa. Then, in March 2010, he was laid off from his job at IBM. As a 49-year-old husband and father of three teenagers, the future is daunting for Lee, as he seeks new employment and learns how to use adaptive technologies so that he can continue doing the information technology work he has done over the last 25 years. “It’s like I am 17 again and starting over,” he says. “It’s tricky. I have a lot of knowledge and IT experience, but I need to retrain myself to compensate for not being able to read a computer monitor.”
“It pushed me on all levels — my spirits were high some days, low other days,” says Lee. “Night was the hardest, because my body wanted to sleep, but I needed to keep going. I only slept five hours a night, an hour at a time. I felt like I had jet lag. Overall the walk was exhilarating, but at the same time, it was tiring and agonizing. I had to get through a lot of pain, including a tear of my Achilles.”
Perhaps most remarkable about Lee’s walk was the hundreds of people, many were complete strangers, who came to support him with food, advice, encouragement, and as he says, “potions and lotions.” And because Lee is still not yet adept at using a white cane, he was arm in arm with someone for each and every mile of the event. “I had a lot of great conversations and met a lot of great people,” Lee chuckles. “The support was quite overwhelming and heartwarming.”
Using the Foundation’s Race to Cure Web site and fundraising tools, Lee and his family raised more than $15,000. He and his wife, Sandra, worked hard to get the word out about the walk, sending out fliers, making t-shirts, reaching out to media, and spreading the word through their network of friends and family. They also contacted local businesses for sponsorship and contributions of food and supplies.