Being inspired

This was a long week for me with training and dealing with passing of my uncle to cancer. I took one last hit before the weekend was over today when my mom called to let me know that her brother may have cancer. Will it ever end? My uncle Roy, who also is my godfather, is a hilarious man who always finds humor in the worst of situations and I know that he will do the same in this case if in fact he is diagnosed with cancer. When my mom had her surgery last summer to remove a cancerous tumor and her kidney he brought my mom a bag of kidney beans. When he was in the hospital a few years ago after having open heart surgery I remember asking how the hospital food was and he said, "great....if you like the taste of cardboard" and I remember laughing so hard at that.

Yesterday at our team brick we actually met with the members training for a marathon. We talked about our events and one woman shared a story of a 9 year old boy suffering from Leukemia and his battle it was very touching and we all biked/ran for him. I also met a couple John and Tracy and their cute daughter. Tracy is one of the marathon coaches and John is training for the marathon in Hawaii but you wouldn't have known it since he rode his bike. I thought he was training for the triathlon with me and when we were riding side by side he said, "no...i hate running so i am riding my bike for the cardio." He was going to do the Cap Tex Tri in May but hurt his knee so he just pushed his fund raising into the Hawaii marathon. John ended up running after we rode almost 10 miles.

I learned from John that he and his wife lost their 9 year old son to Leukemia in 2007 and ever since then the have been involved with Team in Training. John's goal is to make the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society on the same level as the Susan G. Komen events. It was inspiring to hear him talk about his son and his passion for what he is doing. It helps to keep me motivated.