Terry Fox

Hello! My name is Terry Fox. I was born on July 28th, 1958, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, a province right in the middle of Canada. When I was a kid, my family moved all the way to the west coast, to a town called Port Coquitlam in British Columbia. I loved sports more than anything. I played soccer, rugby, baseball, and my favorite, basketball. I wasn't the tallest or the fastest player at first, but I was very determined. My coach told me that if I wanted to be a good player, I had to work harder than anyone else, so that’s exactly what I did. I also loved to run and joined my school's cross-country team. That feeling of pushing myself to go just a little bit further was something I carried with me my whole life.

When I was 18 years old and in university, something happened that changed my life forever. In 1976, I was in a small car accident, and afterward, my right knee started to hurt. The pain didn't go away; in fact, it got much worse. In March of 1977, I went to the hospital, and the doctors told me I had a type of bone cancer called osteosarcoma. To stop the cancer from spreading through my body, they told me they had to amputate my leg, which means they had to remove it above the knee. The night before my surgery, I read a magazine article about a runner who had also lost his leg but still competed. Right then, a new dream started to form in my mind. Seeing other children in the cancer ward, some very young and sick, made me realize I had to do something to help them.

My experience in the hospital gave me a big idea. I decided I would run all the way across Canada to raise money for cancer research. I wanted to help find a cure so that other people wouldn't have to go through what I did. I called my journey the 'Marathon of Hope.' For more than a year, I trained by running on my new artificial leg. It wasn't easy. Learning to run again was difficult and painful, but I kept going because my goal was so important to me. On April 12th, 1980, my journey officially began. I stood on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean in St. John's, Newfoundland, dipped my artificial leg into the freezing water, and started running west. My goal was simple: to ask every single Canadian to donate just one dollar for cancer research.

Every single day, I ran about 26 miles—that's the same distance as a full marathon race. My best friend, Doug Alward, drove a van behind me that carried all of our supplies. The journey was incredibly tough. We faced pouring rain, strong winds that pushed me backward, and even snow. At first, not many people knew what I was doing. But as I ran through the small towns and big cities in Quebec and Ontario, word started to spread. Newspapers wrote stories, and TV stations showed videos of my run. Soon, people would line the streets to cheer me on and give me donations for cancer research. It was the most incredible feeling to see so many people believing in my dream. Their support gave me the strength to keep putting one foot in front of the other, day after day.

I ran for 143 days in a row, covering an amazing 5,373 kilometers, which is 3,339 miles! I had made it more than halfway across the enormous country of Canada. But on September 1st, 1980, just outside of Thunder Bay, Ontario, I started coughing very hard and felt a terrible pain in my chest. I had to stop running. I went to the hospital and learned that the cancer had come back and had spread to my lungs. It was heartbreaking to stop my Marathon of Hope, but the people of Canada didn't let my dream end. A national television event was held, and it raised millions of dollars for cancer research. I was so proud of what we had all accomplished together.

I lived to be 22 years old, passing away on June 28th, 1981. Even though my run across Canada was not finished, my Marathon of Hope never truly ended. The first Terry Fox Run was held that same year, and now, every September, millions of people in Canada and around the world run, walk, or bike to continue my dream of finding a cure for cancer. People remember me as a young man who believed that anything is possible if you try. I hope my story shows you that one person, no matter who they are, can make a difference in the world.