3/5/12 Update: I just learned this morning that yet another friend was diagnosed with leukemia and will be getting a bone marrow transplant in April. I continue the fight to find a cure on behalf of Marie Brady and so many others.

Original message:

"Why?" you ask, would I want to spend countless exhausting hours training for a triathlon and simultaneously raise thousands of dollars (not to mention needing to work and attend to other obligations)? To help wipe out blood cancers. Period. (Ok, the training does help to negate the junk food I dump into my mouth too.)

When I look back at past century bicycle rides and fund raising efforts with Team In Training, I can easily say that those efforts were as easy as putting my hand into a bag of potato chips in comparison to what the human body has to go through when they're told "you're at stage 3, we have to admit you now and start months of chemo treatment..." or "your 18 month old boy has Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia and will have to go through years of chemo and you will be dealing with an enormous number of side affects and issues - if he survives...." or what a friend heard who was in her second trimester of pregnancy: "...your lymphoma is at stage 4...you need to decide what to do with your baby girl because chemo starts tomorrow..."

No doubt, people's lives can change in an instant. In too many cases, for the worse.

I have not one excuse not to continue to help. Not one.

How did this physical activity nonsense start for me? In the late 90's my sister Paige's health was in question. Leukemia? Whew, it wasn't. However her diagnosis of a blood disease made me stop and retrieve that word. Leukemia. Hadn't my dear friend Dale Frye lose his dad to this when Dale was just a teenager? And didn't a colleague I hardly get to know also die from it? But yet again, another colleague, a father of 3 young boys, succumbed to leukemia as well. Our family, my sister, got lucky in a way.

Because of this personal event, because of the loss of James Earl Frye and the admiration I have for his son, my friend Dale, because of others I have since met who have victored over or passed on rom a horrific blood cancer: I swim. I cycle. I run. I shamelessly raise money.

I do this because I believe in the hard work the researchers have and continue to put into finding a cure. I do this because LLS puts more INTO research than marketing. I do this because LLS is a top rated charitable cause. I do this because I am healthy and able and grateful for the opportunity.

On April 1, 2012 (an appropriate day, no?) I will be participating in the Lavaman Triathlon in Kona, Hawaii with an amazing team of other cancer cure warriors. Collectively, the 20+ participants of this triathlon (one of whom continues his leukemia battle and is in constant pain - SO inspired by him!) will likely raise close to $100,000 if not more!

I will personally aim to raise over $4,000 - the majority of which goes towards helping to find cures and better treatments for leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease and myeloma. Because of your donation, you are improving the quality of my life by enabling me to participate in the Lavaman Triathlon - and with your support, we can help improve the quality of life for blood cancer patients and their families.

Please make a secure, tax-deductible donation in support of my triathlon efforts with Team-In-Training to help advance the research for cures. (That big green "donate now" button to the upper right. Go on! Push that button!)

You have my most sincere thanks.

Stay tuned for Facebook and email updates on my training and, eventually, about the triathlon itself. These updates can be either entertaining or an insomnia cure. ; ]

More information about the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and Team-In-Training can be found here: http://www.lls.org/