Today marks a huge milestone for one of the Leukaemia Foundation’s incredible fundraising partners, Bloody Mission, with the team officially passing $400,000 raised to support people impacted by blood cancer.
And they certainly haven’t taken the easy route to get there.
Bloody Mission was born from founder Cal Gates’ deeply personal connection to blood cancer. Cal’s wife, Tara, lost her mum to leukaemia when she was just three years old, leaving an impact that has stayed with their family ever since.
Years later, Cal watched Tara shave her head for the World’s Greatest Shave, raising more than $9,000. Inspired by her courage, and having seen firsthand the impact blood cancer can have on a family, Cal began thinking about how he could use his own passion for ultra-running to make a difference.
The result was The Blood Run.
In 2022, Cal set out to run from Newcastle to Sydney along the Great North Walk, around 250 kilometres of trail with more than 10,000 metres of elevation, in a single push.
His philosophy was simple: do bloody hard things for those who can’t.
What started as one enormous personal challenge has since grown into Bloody Mission, a community of people willing to test their limits, stand alongside people affected by blood cancer and raise vital funds along the way.
Throwing down the gauntlet
Since The Blood Run, Cal and the Bloody Mission team have continued to dream up challenges that most of us would probably prefer to watch from a safe distance.
Their annual Last Person Standing event asks competitors to complete a 6.7km trail loop, every hour, on the hour.
And this isn’t your standard backyard ultra.
Each lap includes more than 200 metres of elevation, meaning the climbing quickly becomes just as challenging as the distance. This year’s winner kept going for more than 24 hours, an extraordinary feat of endurance in its own right.
Then there was the Tassie Trail Challenge.
A team of five runners, including Cal Gates and Dan Ferris, took on a gruelling 480km journey across Tasmania, completing consecutive 50km relay legs through the day and night.
Between legs, the team supported each other, set up camp in the wilderness and kept moving south, all under the Bloody Mission banner of doing it “for those who can’t.”
5km straight up
And then there’s possibly Bloody Mission’s most brutal challenge yet: Vertical 5K, or V5.
The concept sounds simple.
Accumulate 5,000 metres of vertical elevation.
The reality is anything but.
Whether it’s stairs, hills, mountains or repeated climbs of the same unforgiving stretch of trail, participants have to keep heading upwards until they have banked five vertical kilometres.
That’s thousands upon thousands of metres of climbing, tired legs and plenty of moments where stopping would be the easier option.
But that’s exactly the point.
The temporary discomfort of these challenges represents something much bigger: standing alongside people who don’t get to choose the challenges that blood cancer puts in front of them.
More than $400,000
Passing $400,000 raised is an extraordinary achievement.
But Bloody Mission’s impact goes well beyond the number on a fundraising page.
Cal and the team have created awareness of blood cancer, brought new people into the cause and built a community around a simple idea: that when someone else is facing something unimaginably hard, we can choose to stand with them.
From everyone at the Leukaemia Foundation, we want to recognise and thank Cal and the entire Bloody Mission community for everything they have done and continue to do.
Every kilometre. Every climb. Every early morning. Every exhausted lap. Every donation.
It all adds up.
And $400,000 is one hell of a milestone.
Take on the V5
If you’ve ever wondered what it feels like to take on a Bloody Mission challenge yourself, now is your chance.
Vertical 5K returns this October, and you don’t need to knock it over in one enormous effort.
You can accumulate your 5,000 metres of elevation across any five days in October, on your local hill, favourite trail, a set of stairs or wherever you can find some vertical.
Do something bloody hard for those who can’t.
