What it’s actually like to do dance marathon for an entire day

You’ve probably seen the hype and the abundance of Facebook posts all surrounding Stanford Dance Marathon that happened last weekend. After being on the exec team for DM as Greek Outreach and spending nine months preparing for the event, I was pretty excited about finally getting to to challenge myself to dance for 24 hours. But I admit I was also a little nervous about what I was getting myself into.

Dance Marathon is so much more than colorful rally, performances, and dancing until you drop: it’s truly about banding to gather to celebrate and push ourselves to do our part in the fight for equal access to health care worldwide.

In case you didn’t get the chance to #JoinIn, here is a glimpse into what it is really like to be up and dancing for 24 straight hours at Dance Marathon.

12pm – the beginning

After setting up all morning, I was excited and ready to start dancing. All of our dancers filled the room as the band came running in, exciting and energizing the crowd as only the band can do, and I was definitely psyched and excited for the day ahead.

2pm – Jazzercise

This hour was undoubtedly one of the best of the entire Marathon. Over a hundred people all gathered around to shake their hips an bust out a few body rolls. Afterward I was dead tired, and that’s when I thought to myself: “better save some energy, only have 21 hours of this left to go.”

6pm PIH Speaker and Faculty Dinner

Our PIH representative Nadine flew in from Rwanda, and she gave an incredible speech to remind everyone just why we were dancing. Listening to her talk about her personal experience and her passion for providing health care to everyone who doesn’t have access to it gave me the motivation to power through the night.

11pm – The Ultimate Dance Party

Hundreds of people were rolling through the door to come join all of the 24 hour dancers. Students from all around campus rolled out to support, and we all danced together and didn’t stop until the wee hours of the morning.

3am – 90s Power Hour

Now I can say with certainty that this was hands-down my favorite hour of the entire event. Just when I thought that I should be getting tired by now, I felt a huge second wind come over me. I realized that there is nothing that can energize you like blasting “Bye Bye Bye” at 3am. Everyone who remained let loose, singing and dancing like crazy people to every Britney, Spice Girls, NSync, and Backstreet Boys hit.

5am – The Struggle is Real

Now this is when it got brutal. As I allowed myself to sit down to plug away on a bit of work (I admit it, I did have to sit for a bit) I realized my knees had never felt so swollen in my entire life. People were falling asleep on tables and curled up in between backpacks, and I honestly began to wonder how my feet were going to make it through another seven hours.

8am – Silent Disco

Silent Disco came at just the right time, when a bit of comic relief could not have been more needed. As everyone bopped around with their own set of headsets, it made for a great laugh to take off your own headphones and hear everyone yelling the words to “Gold Digger” without any music playing.

9:30am – Yoga

By 9:30am, my muscles had honestly never hurt that bad in my entire life. This yoga was unbelievably necessary for my hamstrings. Everyone was nodding off in their Warrior 2s, and I just nearly fell asleep in my Pidgeon Pose.

11:30am – Final Reveal

It struck me as there were only 30 minutes left to go that we had all had something off that was pretty incredible. As exec gathered on stage do do a big reveal of the final amount of money raised, I was excited as well as nervous to see just how much had been raised for Partners in Health Rwanda. As everyone stopped, we revealed to the dancers that we had in fact raised $92,800, and had broken a million dollars total that Stanford had been able to raise for PIH Rwanda. Watching jaws drop and everyone look so amazed really drove home that everyone of fun and pain was all worth it.

12pm – Final Countdown

After the countdown of the last minute of DM, everyone collapsed to the floor in relief, exhaustion, and a lot of joy. I couldn’t believe it was done.

Dance Marathon was truly an experience: both fun and challenging. But there was something so powerful and truly inspiring to see so many Stanford students band together to fight for something bigger than us and our lives here, and so wonderful to now that we actually made a difference in the fight for equal access to healthcare. After nine months of work, effort, and fundraising, 41,000 steps, $92,800, and 24 hours, I can undoubtedly sat that Dance Marathon this was one one of the most rewarding days and unforgettable experiences of my time at Stanford.