On April 7th, Elon University had its annual 24 hour dance marathon--Elonthon.

I was happy to have participated in such an amazing event that benefitted the children and families at Duke Children’s Hospital. I danced for 18 hours. There were some rough moments, but overall it was a great experience. These are the stages of a 24 hour dance marathon.

1. Excitement

As the opening ceremony starts, everyone is full of excitement. You arrive on time, check in, and get excited as the speeches end and the music starts. When the first miracle child speaks, your heart warms up inside knowing that you are here to help these children who are struggling. You look forward to a full day of dancing.

2. Hunger

You’ve been dancing for 3 hours straight, and are starting to run out of moves, but all you can think about is the food they will be serving in the next 30 minutes.

3. Exhaustion

When you think about how much longer you will be on your feet, exhaustion begins to hit. You are jealous of the people who are only there for 6 hours. Maybe if you tell yourself you're not tired, you won’t be. Mind over matter.

4. Intoxication

This is the best stage. Rave hour hits and you are so over tired that you feel intoxicated. Yes, it is possible to feel this way without consuming alcohol. You dance to every single song that plays, go a little too hard during ZUMBA, and start to feel like the room is spinning when you walk up the stairs.

5. Regret

After your enthusiasm slowly dies down, you immediately regret not getting as much sleep as possible the night before. You don’t regret participating in the event itself, but you just regret not preparing for it physically. Maybe you should have gotten that large coffee?

6. Over- Tiredness

Your body is slowly shutting down, but you are still functioning somehow. All you can think about is the bed you’re going to crawl into as soon as the marathon is over. You look around and wonder if there is a place you could sleep, so that you won’t be seen. You immediately put that thought aside, because you’re halfway there.

7. Commitment

Even though you feel as if you are a walking zombie, you remember why you are participating in the event in the first place. This gives you the power, and strength to keep dancing for the kids who can’t.

8. Optimism

There is a light at the end of the tunnel when you realize that you are more than halfway done. The first half wasn’t so bad, and you know you can do it for another 10 hours. You just gotta power through. The optimism motivates you to dance like you did during the rave hour, and dancing somehow revives you.

9. Hunger--Stage 2

You danced so much from your optimism phase, that a wave of hunger and exhaustion hits you. You find yourself getting more and more impatient as you wait in line to eat.

10. Delusion

You look outside the windows of the gym, and wonder how it's light outside. The clock reads 2pm, but you feel as if it’s 2am. You can’t believe how fast the time actually went. Your reaction time is way slower than normal, and you feel as if things that happened 8 hours ago actually happened weeks ago.

11. Final Hours

It’s the final hours and you start to think back on the night and day you had. You immediately forget about the pain in your legs and your exhaustion, because you know you can survive another few hours.

12. Pride

As the closing ceremony wraps up, you are happy you participated in such a fun (although exhausting) event. At the end of it all, you are so proud you did it for the kids. You look forward to passing out for as long as humanly possible, but are grateful you were part of such an amazing cause.