WASHINGTON — To try to keep warm they stamped their feet, jumped up and down and resorted to group hugs. But little helps when temperatures are in the teens, the wind chill is below zero and you’re wearing just your underwear.
Beneath a balloon arch stretched across Pennsylvania Avenue on Capitol Hill, hundreds of scantily clad runners, who had warmed themselves inside some of the Hill’s most popular watering holes, made their midday mad dash to raise funds to help children battling a terrible disease.
Each Valentine’s Day weekend, runners in more than two dozen cities across the nation participate in Cupid’s Undie Run. It’s an event to raise money to battle NF – Neurofibromatosis – a genetic disorder, usually diagnosed in children, that causes tumors to develop in the body’s nervous system.
The run also raises money for the Children’s Tumor Foundation. Organizers say this year’s run on Capitol Hill, the sixth Cupid Undie Run in Washington, raised more than $300,000.
Michelle Gill, of Herndon, Virginia, and her four gal pals ran in matching pink tutus and black T-shirts emblazoned “Team Grace,” for Gill’s 9-year-old daughter who is battling NF.
“Every year my heart is so overwhelmed with the fact that people come out here and do this,” Gill says.
Susan Lee, of D.C., ran the course in a red one-piece swimsuit.
“As horribly cold as it is today it is a lot worse being a kid with tumors, with NF…this is my way of bringing awareness to this and helping people,” Lee says, shivering against the cold.
Organizers ordered precautions for this year’s run because of the extreme cold.
“We are encouraging runners to stay inside if they’re not comfortable, we’re encouraging extra layering this year,” says AJ Cook, race director of Cupid’s Undie Run.
Outdoor pre-race festivities were shortened and the course was trimmed from eight-tenths to five-tenths of a mile.
