When I first started running with Team in Training three years ago, I would feel a little bit awkward on those first few long runs when everyone who I was running with would inevitably ask what my connection to the cause was...and I didn't have one.

Then, this past September, my father went into the hospital for what seemed like a run-of-the-mill case of cellulitis. And never left. As it turned out, he had metastatic liver cancer. His liver was failing, which in turn spurred his kidneys to fail, and within two weeks he was gone.

We had no idea he even had cancer at all, and even if we had, there is no guarantee that rounds of chemo and surgery would have meant a cure for him because, especially for liver cancer, we are just not there yet. Which is why I have a mission-to help find cures and more effective treatments for cancers. To accomplish that mission, I’m participating in the NYC Marathon as a member of The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s (LLS) Team In Training. Like the other members of TNT, I will be raising funds to help find cures and better treatments for cancer.

Even though I signed up for this marathon before any of this happened, a large part of me did it because I wanted my dad to be able to see me run a marathon. He hadn't been able to come to my previous two because of distance, but I knew that if I ran New York, he would have no excuses. Unfortunately, now he won't be there to see it and to tell me how proud he is of me. But I'll be thinking of him through all 26.2 miles. Of how strong he was, of what an amazing man he was, and of how much I don't want other people to have to feel this pain of having lost someone they love so dearly to such a terrible disease ever again.

Please make a donation in support of my efforts with Team In Training and help advance the research for cures.