Senior runs and bikes cross country for a cause

Samantha Turner, a senior majoring in English, will trade planes and cars to bike cross country this summer.

Turner will be biking to raise awareness about cancer, but is not the first time she will take part in such an event as she ran across the country from San Francisco to Baltimore in 2013. She will be biking with the 4K for Cancer, an organization that raises money for the Ulman Cancer fund in Baltimore, Maryland. For every dollar that each participant raises, the 4K Cancer Fund donates 90 cents to a young person affected by cancer.

Turner explained that she was motivated to become part of 4K for Cancer by the cancer patients.

“I just really want to be part of the cure. I just think it’s so unfair,” she said. “With cancer, you are so helpless. There really is nowhere to turn. Your entire life falls in the hands of doctors.”

When Turner ran the across the United States, she ran with a group of 21 college students from all over the country. It took her and her teammates 30 days. This time around, she expects that the bike trip will take 70 days.

Turner explained that though it may seem counterintuitive that biking will take longer than running, it is because of the way in which the two are carried out.

“When we ran, we were separated into two vans of 15 people. The van would then drop two people off every two miles. When the van was finished dropping off the last pair, it would go back and pick up the people that were first dropped off.”

The states her team ran through in 2013 were California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Idaho, Kentucky, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland.

“It was an incredible experience,” Turner said. “Since we were not allowed on highways, we usually took back roads and I was able to see parts of the United States that very few people have actually seen.”

This year, Turner will be biking from Baltimore, Maryland to Portland, Oregon.

Along the way, they will stop by “hope houses,” where cancer patients receive treatment if the nearest hospital is too far away.

“It was very emotional stopping by hope houses because you see people receiving chemotherapy which is extremely harsh on the body.”

In doing so, they also hope to raise awareness as they conduct their trip.

“In order for the 90 cents of every dollar we raise to be allocated to a young person affected by cancer, we don’t sleep in hotels,” Turner said. “We don’t pay for housing so we stay in places like churches or high school gyms.”

The group will do some sightseeing if they finish their miles early, but oftentimes they aren’t left with extra time.

“We usually woke up at 4:30 in the morning, so we could start running by 5:30 to avoid the heat,” Turner said. “The earliest the team finished was 12 p.m., but if the team was taking a while to run, we could be done until 5 p.m.”

Turner said that the hardest part of the trip was being separated from her family and friends. It was even more difficult when she did not have cellphone service and wanted to share something special about the trip with her family.

Nonetheless, Turner described her trip as being incredible.

“I met some of the best people in the entire world. They were people willing to sacrifice so much for others,” Turner said. “Each of them had a relation to cancer, a family member that they cared about and it was just amazing to meet so many people care for someone other than themselves.”

Turner said that her main motivation for competing is to let the young patients know she supports them.

“This year, I am dedicating my trip to them,” Turner said. “My only wish is for these people to know that somebody cares about them. If I were in their position, I would want someone to do the same.”

So far, Turner has been the only Trojan to participate in 4K for Cancer.

“It would be amazing to see other people from USC to take part, even if it’s alumni.”

Turner said that her main goal is to raise awareness about the cancer community.

“I just want to tell people about my story, of what I am doing, to give back to the cancer community. I am an incredibly lucky person and it’s just part of being human to just give back,” she said.