Our Champions
Why I Run
Long distance running has never been my thing. Ever since my high school football days, lifting weights and keeping the cardio under 30 minutes has been my preferred approach to staying fit. Up until a couple of years ago, running anything further than 5 miles in one go seemed like torture. So it surprised me when Angel reached out about running the NYC Marathon for Augie’s Quest to find a cure for ALS and I didn’t even think twice; the answer was a resounding yes.
ALS first became a part of my life back when I was in college. I had never met Augie at that point. He didn’t know it, but he was a tremendously inspirational figure to me. My dad had told my brothers and me all about him: how he was one of the most active people he knew, a visionary in the fitness industry, and a force to be reckoned with in just about any physical endeavor imaginable. And how his body was taken away from him by the horrible disease, ALS.
Again, I’ve never been much of a long distance runner. The 4-mile route I’d run up and down Foothill Blvd in San Luis Obispo when I was at Cal Poly felt like a marathon to me. But I vividly remember thinking about Augie as I suffered through those 4 miles, especially going up the small hill at the end of the route. Thinking about how he’d trade places with me in a second to be using his body again became my way of powering through any workout when I felt my willpower fading.
Fast forward 4 years later, ALS hit much closer to home. For a few months, my mom had been experiencing an unexplained case of “Drop Foot.” Eventually it took her away from tennis. Mom was a truly amazing tennis player; at one point, she was playing on 6 different teams, she took two of them to the USTA National Finals, and throughout her playing years, she won close to 90% of her matches, all while still being Super Mom. After a number of visits to all sorts of specialists, she was finally referred to a neurologist. Given what I knew about Augie, when I heard the word “Neurologist,” it terrified me. It wasn’t long after we got the diagnosis: Mom had ALS.
The life expectancy of ALS is 2-5 years and has no cure (yet). In many cases, the disease takes its victims in less than 18 months. We were blessed to get 8 cherished years with mom after her diagnosis. She fought hard and she fought beautifully. The easy path would have been to complain and ask “why me?” Instead, she found a profound purpose in her situation. She became a beacon in the San Francisco Bay Area ALS community, counseling dozens of newly diagnosed people whose whole worlds were turned upside down overnight. It’s a terrifyingly lonely feeling being diagnosed with a terminal disease that has no cure (yet!).
She teamed up with Augie, and together, she and my dad relentlessly spread awareness across the Bay Area. Over the course of the past several years, they’ve championed several fundraisers, rallying the generously efficacious community of Silicon Valley, raising millions for Augie’s Quest to find a cure for ALS.
She always knew this wasn’t going to turn into a cure in her lifetime. But that didn’t stop her. She fought, and fought, and fought, up to her final days, so that one day, those that are diagnosed with ALS won’t have to think about how they won’t get to dance with their sons at their wedding or won’t get to see their grandchildren growing up. One day, ALS WILL have a cure! It’s not an incurable disease; it’s simply an underfunded one. Mom believed that in her core and did everything she could to change that.
So when Angel reached out about the NYC Marathon, it was a no-brainer. I’m picking up the torch. Every mile I run I’ll be thinking about Mom and Augie. How they’d have done anything to be using their bodies, powering through the pain. How, despite their failing bodies, they chose to fight. I’ll be running for them, and for the thousands of other courageous people, and their families, who are taking this disease head-on. I’ll be running to kick ALS’s ass so that someday very soon we will find a Cure.
