The Team In Training Presentation- Why I signed up...

As I said the presenation was given by a group of very healthy looking runners. All of whom had the same line, "I too was sitting where you are wondering can I really run a marathon?"

Naturally all of them assured the crowd, YES YOU TOO CAN RUN A MARATHON. Really? Me? I mean I've got this back thing, I used to smoke a pack of cigarettes a day, I love to eat food, good food, bad food...Really? Me, Jimmy Jimmy Jo Jam?

YES. People worse off than you have completed training and a marathon, then they come back for more!

Yeah right. Did I miss the Kool Aid on the way in? Cause it sure seems like these people are all singing the same song...And you know what I kind of liked the tune. Then things got a little heavy...

The lights dimmed and the and video was put in the VCR. Images of lots of people running (obviously they drank the Kool Aid). These are people who look happy. Happy while they're running a marathon. Then it hits me I'm watching crazy people. I'm watching crazy people laugh and have a good time while running. I'm thinking, all right now, I get it, it's a lot of fun, run, marathon, people have good time, I get it.

Then the screen flashes to kids in hospital gowns, with IV's in their arms, and no hair on their heads. I sucked in a deep breath. The idea that children who have not yet "lived" their lives are now fighting to stay alive. It just seemed so damn unfair. I've had such a full life in my thirty something years. Why did I get so lucky and some kid who hasn't lived is fighting so hard just to stay alive?

One of the things I have to tell you here is my Dad survived a battle with cancer recently. The scariest thing about the whole thing was we didn't know how far the cancer had spread. And we wouldn't know until they split stem to stern and had "a look around." Huh? You're gonna cut my Dad open like a side of beef and look around? Its not a set a car keys, its friggin' cancer! Isn't there some test you can do to tell? Have you got to cut him open? Yes they did.

Fortunately he's gonna be all right. He seems to function just fine without that pesky bit of cancerous colon. Sure he's got a big zipper scar up his front, but he's here. Well not in Brooklyn, somewhere on the east coast. He got his Jack Keroac going full tilt boogie, and is traveling the country with his wife in an RV.

So why am I running? To honor my Dad, who showed real courage during his battle with cancer. To help those young kids battling blood cancers. I'm running for you, reading this, I want you to live your life to the fullest.