50 miles in 3 days: National MS Society in Scripps Ranch hosts Southern California Walk MS

The National Multiple Sclerosis Society’s San Diego office, located in Scripps Ranch, reports that more than 220 walkers already are registered for its 2013 Southern California Challenge Walk MS, a three-day, 50-mile fundraising walk along the coastline starting at Carlsbad’s Flower Fields and ending in Downtown San Diego, Sept. 27-29.

The National MS Society’s San Diego-based Pacific South Coast Chapter said about 80 of the 220 walkers preparing for the upcoming 12th annual Challenge Walk have been diagnosed with MS, a chronic, unpredictable and disabling disease of the central nervous system with no known cause, cure or prevention.

The fundraising goal is $1 million for MS research and programs and services for Southern Californians living with MS. The minimum donation required to walk in the 2013 Challenge Walk MS is $2,500 per person, which includes overnight hotel accommodations, meals and entertainment. The fundraising minimum for walkers between ages 10 and 16 is $1,500. Registration information is available at www.MyMSChallenge.com, or phone Jennifer West, special events senior director, at (760) 448-8435.

The Challenge Walk’s first day, 20-mile walk will begin at the Flower Fields in Carlsbad and end at the San Diego Marriott Del Mar Hotel. The second day, 20-mile walk will begin at the hotel and end at Sunset Point in Mission Bay, where buses will shuttle walkers back to the hotel for a dinner and entertainment. The final day, 10-mile walk will begin at Sunset Point and end around noontime at Embarcadero Marina Park South, located behind the San Diego Convention Center in Downtown San Diego.

Since the event’s inception in 2002, when 179 local walkers raised $496,000, the Pacific South Coast Chapter’s Challenge Walk has raised a cumulative total of more than $10 million, which is among the highest dollar amounts of any of the nine other Challenge Walk MS events organized by the 50-state network for MS Society chapters in the U.S. The Southern California Challenge Walk MS, organized by both the San Diego-based Pacific South Coast Chapter and the Los Angeles-based Southern California & Nevada Chapter, is the only Challenge Walk west of the Mississippi River.

MS, the most common neurological disease leading to disability in young‑ to middle‑aged adults, interrupts the flow of information within the brain and between the brain and the body. Most people are diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 50, and more than twice as many women as men have MS. Symptoms cannot be predicted and can vary greatly, ranging from numbness in the limbs and extreme fatigue to loss of balance and muscle coordination or paralysis.