11 Team in Training seasons.

I started this program with a promise to honor my lifelong friend's sister's memory. I started to compete in the Team in Training's triathlon program to raise money to fight blood related cancers despite my near drowning accident as a child. The transformation in that first season was incredible. I overcame my fear of swimming in open water and I managed to become the highest fundraiser for the Westside LA for my very first season. I could not have done it without the incredible help with my amazing friends and supporters.

I never thought after all these years volunteering for a cancer charity, that I would have a loss that would hit so close to home. My father passed away from a rare, painful, and aggressive bile duct cancer after just a year from his first diganosis. Losing a parent from cancer is perhaps one of the most soul crushing experiences I ever had to go through. When you carry a loss like that in your heart, you can feel quite helpless.

I intend to turn that feeling of helplessness into action.

After 11 seasons with LLS, I have personally matched and donated thousands of dollars, over 6 solid years of volunteering (with well over 200 weekends of my time), over 103 platelet donations (essentially 2 hour blood donations that centrifuges white blood cells that the Red Cross uses to help hemophiliacs and cancer patients fight infections), and I've donated to other teammates as well. You will not find a more committed volunteer than me.

Now it's time to raise the bar. I am planning to take on again a year long quest to train for Ironman Couer D' Alene. It's a monster endurance event that requires you to swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles and run a full marathon all with strict time cut offs. This event has eluded me since the last time I tried to tackle it, I had to DNF (Did Not Finish status) just 11 miles from the finish line for a 140.6 mile journey. I failed because my bike broke a wheel spoke at mile 30, forcing me to lose an hour waiting for help and the time I was forced to make up was paid for by a frantic but futile effort to push myself just to make the cut offs up to mile 15 of the marathon.

The road ahead is very hard. There will be many miles to swim, bike, and run to the finish line.

I have also committed to doing this race by paying for my own race fees, my own airline tickets, and pretty much my own way. YES. I am picking up thoses costs out of pocket. Practically everything fundraised will go directly to the cause.

All of us on Team In Training are raising funds to help stop leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin lymphoma and myeloma from taking more lives.

I dedicate this extraordinary journey in honor and in the memory of the people that I care about.

I am completing this event in memory of my former co-worker and friend John Buchin and for my great life long friend Barbara Yeninas's departed sister Cheryl Spector, and Bill Slack who was our Honored Teammate before he died three years ago. I also will honor Rosemary Berdon. I would also like to honor Kerrie Hubbard (who was my personal honored teammate from Lavaman 2008 season) on here successful fight against leukemia and now she's in remission. And I am racing in honor of my newest personal honored teammate, Kelly Kline, an insanely talented photographer up in Seattle. She's in the fight of her life with cancer. I carry their names on my jersey.

I also do this in honor of a fallen teammate, Marisela Echeverria. She was a close teammate and a ray of sunshine for the 2012 team. She was tragically killed while training for her Ironman race. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/10/bicyclist-killed-in-malibu-bus-crash-was-training-for-triathlon.html Needless to say...we were completely devastated from the loss. She was an inspiring champion for the cause by coming back season after season, raising funds for cancer by doing triathlons and marathons. This was her favorite cause. We celebrate her life by keeping her memory alive, doing what she would do, for any of us.

And most of all...I dedicate my Ironman my father who lost his own fight against cancer in March of 2011. I dropped out of the race in the last months before his passing, and dropped out of doing triathlons all together while I tended to matters. My father passed away from a very rare, and incredibly aggressive bile duct cancer that spread to his liver, lungs, and bones. With only 1 year since his diagnosis, he died just 4 days before I was scheduled to race at the Lavaman triathlon. My whole triathlon team honored him at the finish line the week of his funeral.

2 years later, I decided to come back and complete that journey at a longer distance. I may not be a strong as before, but my resolve has not changed.

I have connected with so many people who are touched by this disease. I can't tell you how much the spectre of cancer can instantly rearrange one's priorities.

The money you contribute will go towards research, patient services, and important grants in the fight against cancer. For instance, Gleevec, a powerful drug against chronic myeloid leukemia that was developed by the research dollars partially funded by past donors, has been found to be promising for treatments of other cancers. As a matter of fact, 19 of the 32 cancer drugs in clinical trials are specifically targeted at blood cancers. This is made possible by the incredible support of organizations like this.

Please make a donation to support my participation in Team In Training and help advance LLS's mission. I hope by raising some money for the cause, it will bring some a world of good. They are the kind of people would do it for us if the roles were reversed.

Perhaps one day, the medical advances we find could be a step in curing other cancers. We will bring real dollars to fund the research that needs to get done. And that is something we can all be extremely proud of.