Salmon Falls 50k is helping create a world without T1D!

About Coloma River Races

Former JDRF (Now Breakthrough T1D) Norcal  board member, Roger Leasure, founded Coloma River Races as an innovative way to raise funds for a type 1 diabetes (T1D) cure. As a longtime Coloma resident and local trail enthusiast, Roger saw an opportunity to promote a healthy lifestyle for all while supportingBreakthroughT1D’s important work for the T1D community. Coloma River Races has raised thousands of dollars for T1D research over the past eight years through the Salmon Falls 50K and other running events. 

Coloma River Races and the Salmon Falls 50K support Breakthrough T1D in honor of Roger Wayne Leasure IV who passed away from type 1 diabetes in 2021.

With race proceeds benefiting Breakthrough T1D, a global leader in fundraising for T1D research and therapy development, Salmon Falls 50K runners can participate with confidence that each race entry positively impacts people living with T1D.

 During the past six fiscal years, through Breakthrough T1D’s research grants and Breakthrough T1D Fund investments, more than $1 billion has been directed to cure T1D and improve lives—with most of it (approximately 80%) focused on cures.

​About Type 1 Diabetes

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease that strikes both children and adults suddenly. It has nothing to do with diet or lifestyle. There is nothing you can do to prevent it. And, at present, there is no cure.

​In T1D, your pancreas stops producing insulin—a hormone the body needs to get energy from food. This means a process your body does naturally and automatically becomes something that now requires your daily attention and manual intervention. If you have T1D, you must constantly monitor your blood-sugar level, inject or infuse insulin through a pump, and carefully balance these insulin doses with your eating and activity throughout the day and night.

​However, insulin is not a cure for diabetes. Even with the most vigilant disease management, a significant portion of your day will be spent with either high or low blood-sugar levels. These fluctuations place people with T1D at risk for potentially life-threatening hypoglycemic and hyperglycemic episodes as well as devastating long-term complications such as kidney failure, heart attack, stroke, blindness and amputation.

Living with T1D means there are no days off and there is no cure. But there is hope, thanks to organizations like JDRF. By participating in a Coloma River Races event, you're supporting JDRF's mission to improve lives today and tomorrow by accelerating life-changing breakthroughs to cure, prevent and treat T1D and its complications.

Your generosity will help Breakthrough T1D fund life-changing breakthroughs to remove the incredible daily burden of this disease—until it no longer exists.

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease that strikes children and adults—and has nothing to do with diet or lifestyle. With T1D, a person’s pancreas stops producing insulin—a hormone essential to turning food into energy. The daily life of someone with T1D brings a multitude of challenges, including insulin injections  that need to be carefully balanced with eating and activity, disruptive glucose monitoring, sleepless nights—and  wishing for a tomorrow where this struggle doesn’t exist.
 
Living with T1D means there are no days off and there is no cure. But there is hope.

By donating or joining our team today, you’ll help Breakthrough T1D fund life-changing breakthroughs to make living with T1D safer and healthier, until there is a cure.

We can’t do it without you!