Our Hero

Often on Sunday mornings, I'll get up early, grab my bike, and head from Astoria to the other side of the George Washington Bridge. It's somewhere between 45 and 70 miles round-trip. Because I often do at least 30 miles of this trip alone and I don't carry an iPod, I'm left with a lot of time to entertain myself. Sometimes I'll sing, sometimes I'll make up word games in my head, and I do a lot of thinking.

Lately, I've been mostly thinking about you.

When Jessica and I signed up for this event in the beginning of January, we knew we had to raise, at a minimum, $2700 each. This is the amount Team in Training asks you to commit to in order for them to provide you with your training experience and donate a significant amount to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. $5400 total, which was more than either of us had ever raised before. It was a daunting number to both of us. One person even told me that they doubted we'd be able to raise our minimum in this economy.

As of today, we have raised $13,755. By the time some matching donations come in, we'll have raised over $15,000.

(Pause for reflection.)

Whenever I tell people what we're doing, they say two things. The first thing they say is "It's amazing that you're doing this triathlon," followed by "It's amazing that you've raised all this money." I want to break those down.

1) "It's amazing that you're doing this triathlon."

Okay, I'll admit that I too think it's a little awesome. But I also think that the hardest thing about doing a triathlon is making the commitment to do it. I have seen people of all different shapes and sizes in all sorts of physical condition put themselves to the test during our training sessions, and watched with pride and amazement as they've pulled themselves through. Case in point: in February, Jessica went for her first run and didn't get more than two blocks without turning around because she was too out of breath to continue. Now, she tackles six miles at a time, twice a week, often after working a 12-hour night shift on her feet AND after biking for a full hour immediately prior. This is a woman who once swore the only way she'd run was if chased by someone. With a knife. She is a machine (and, if I may say so, looks phenomenal).

If any of the above puts a little hint in your head of "maybe I could do a triathlon," I say DO IT! Because you can. And if possible, do it with Team in Training. It's a huge time commitment, but it's easily the most rewarding thing I've ever done. (If you're just curious at this point, I recommend this book, recommended to me by longtime friend, mentor and triathlete Mike Graffeo.)

Granted, I haven't done my triathlon yet, and I've certainly had my share of challenges along the way -- but I'm willing to bet the farm that even if things don't turn out exactly the way I want them to, I'll have walked away (limped away?) with an amazing experience.

So yeah, it's amazing that we're doing a triathlon. But again, I think lots of people can do it.

2) "It's amazing that you've raised all this money."

Unlike training for a triathlon, not everybody can raise all this money. Fundraising can be more difficult than training; you are asking people to open up their wallets and not only believe in the cause, but to believe in you and the time and effort you'll be putting into it -- often before you've really done it yet. You're asking people to take a leap of faith with you, and put their money where their mouths are. It's a risk on both ends. Many people struggle throughout the season to raise the money, and some have dropped out as a result.

But we didn't struggle. We never struggled for a second. And it has very little to do with us, and everything to do with you.

The minute we started sending out e-mails, the donations came pouring in. Almost instantly. The first donation came fifteen minutes after our announcement e-mail. (Actually, the first donation came from a friend who saw a very subtle change I made to my Facebook page, 6 weeks before I even announced it to anyone.) People forwarded our e-mails on to their friends. They shared our blog address and spread the news on Facebook. Friends I met at Who concerts 5-10 years ago popped up and made donations. A friend who (at the time) I only knew through the Internet donated and mentioned it on Twitter, resulting in further donations from complete strangers. Jen Gembs, who sang with us at our benefit concert, sent multiple e-mails to all of her contacts, resulting not only in significant donations at the show but a number of checks from her friends who couldn't make it. (Thanks, Jen!) People affected by the cause sent us money, and people who knew and cared about us sent us money. I went to a fundraising seminar early in this process, and the biggest advice we were given was to just ask for the donations -- to ask everyone -- because you never know who has a connection to the cause and who cares about what you're doing, even if you haven't spoken to them in years. I was skeptical, but they were right.

Fundraising can be difficult, but it's surprisingly easy when you have a strong support system. And we have the strongest support system of anyone we know. We're one of the top 10 fundraisers for the NYC Triathlon. I think we're going to win a duffel bag. :) Even more exciting, we've raised enough that we get to do another triathlon with TNT for "free," and so our training doesn't end here -- on September 12th, Jessica and I will be traveling to Washington, DC for the Nation's Triathlon. (Don't worry, we're not soliciting further donations for that event!)

So yes, it's amazing that we've raised all this money. But we're not amazing. You're amazing. You are our hero, because you stepped up to the plate in so many ways and helped us reach this point. Even if you didn't have the money to donate, but you wrote and sent us a supportive message along the way -- your words of encouragement helped us get through a difficult swim or that sixth mile running in the sweltering heat after work. And I think about you when I'm on my bike, especially during this one hill on River Road in New Jersey. It's a full mile up a very steep hill. It comes exactly 22.7 miles after I've left my apartment, and I start dreading it at mile 21. I try to get an idea in my head of how I'm going to tackle it, but it often goes out the window once I actually get there. So that's when I start thinking about the faith you've put in both of us to raise this money, to do this event, to find a cure. And it gets me through that mile and on my way for the rest of the ride. (Don't get me wrong, that mile still sucks. But it sucks a little less each time.)

If you haven't donated and you'd like to donate, it's not too late. You can make a donation at Jessica & Jason's Fundraising Page (http://pages.teamintraining.org/nyc/nyctri10/goharesgo).

Thank you for being our hero.

Jason & Jessica

The Spirit Cape

Once a week at our Group Training Sessions, the team gathers for two small moments together. The first one is our "Mission Moment," where someone speaks to the team about their connection to the cause. It's always touching and inspirational, and an important reminder that yes, we're there to learn how to do a triathlon, but there's a much greater reason and importance to what we're doing.

The second moment is the presentation of the "Spirit Cape," which is awarded to a member of the team who "exemplifies the spirit and mission of Team in Training." It's usually presented by a mentor, and last Saturday, my mentor Ashley presented it to me! I was surprised, honored and humbled to receive it, and in all honesty, I was also really, really proud. I had arrived at the Saturday morning session with mixed feelings; it was a Brick session (bike + run), and I knew I'd only be able to do the bike portion due to my foot injury. I always feel great for the first half, and sad during the second as I miss out on a part of training. But Ashley's dedication really touched me and made me feel fantastic. As I was biking through the park, other members rode up to me and offered me congratulations, asking me questions like "Did you really shave your head for the cause?" It was a great feeling.

I don't know if there's an actual cape in other chapters, but in our NYC Triathlon chapter, it's actually a large Team in Training Shirt. Each recipient takes it home and decorates it, either with writing or some sort of bling.

Front:

Decorated across the neck are silver letters that say "SWIM * BIKE * RUN." The "Y!" is representative of the corporate Yahoo team.

Back:

I love that quotation at the top.

I am not a visually artistic person. I'm terrible at this stuff. So I decided to keep it simple and wrote a lyric on the sleeve that a very important friend and I share with each other all the time. It's from an Indigo Girls song called "Pushing the Needle Too Far."

Eleven Hundred, or the Ballad of El Baldo

Jessica and I have definitely been lax in updating this blog, but we do have very good reason: as you can guess, we've been training most evenings (and poor Jess's night-shift work schedule has been oppressive, to say the least), but up until last week, we spent most of our free moments planning our benefit concert, KICK CANCER'S A**!

From the moment we heard we'd be attempting to raise a certain amount of money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, I knew I wanted to put on a concert. Playing music is my favorite hobby (cycling right behind it!), and though I certainly enjoy getting paid to do shows, I like the idea of being able to give something of myself for free and raise money for a good cause in return. Volunteering through music. It doesn't get any better than that.

The gig was all I could think about for three months: what bands should perform? How long should they play? What songs are going to get the best reaction? What do we call the event? What does the poster look like? How much do we charge? What's the best date and venue? Slowly but surely, all the pieces began to fall into place. I thankfully knew I could count on Michael Burke to join me for Acoustic '80s, and the guys in Evil Prince Ludwig quickly said yes as well. Dan Gottesman, drummer for the Hometown Sweethearts and a buddy of mine, dug the idea and the cause and agreed to join us too. I knew I wanted to make the Acoustic '80s gig special and different from our usual gigs, so I asked Jen Gembs to guest on six songs. The line-up was perfect. Our usual haunt, Wicked Willy's, agreed to let us have an entire Saturday night, and also agreed to waive their usual cover charge. I picked May 15th based on the amount of time we needed to rehearse, and because I knew that it'd be awesome to be on stage on my birthday (the 16th).

And so we rehearsed the hell out of both bands for a couple of months. In the meantime, Colleen Kesterson helped design a poster based on a concept I had, and over a weekend in Massachusetts, my friends Jeff and Rahul helped me do some refinements. Jessica worked with another wonderful friend, Colleen Houlehen, to make huge posters for the bar. Jess also took care of all the non-music logistics, i.e. the money and the receipts and the collecting at the door (thank you to Colleen K and Amy for your help!).

I warned all three bands that, in truth, I had no idea how the evening was going to go: I knew we were prepared to put on a good show, but I had no real idea of how many people would attend or how much we would raise. I had set myself a goal of $1000, which I knew was high, but I also knew from our fundraising efforts thus far that our friends were nothing if not generous. And nothing wrong with being ambitious.

Acoustic '80s opened the show strong, and I felt we had an engaged audience throughout our set. There were quite a few people in the audience who had specifically come to hear Jen sing, which made me so happy -- and she did not disappoint. We had a few feedback issues, but Jen nailed every song. Performing with her instantly takes me back to being 15 years old and recalling our first performance together. I've always felt Jen and I had a good vocal blend, and that never seems to change, no matter how old we get. She just rocked the hell out of every song and entertained the crowd completely. Acoustic '80s finished up their set with a bunch of our more singable hits, and we left the stage for the Hometown Sweethearts.

I knew the Hometown Sweethearts were good -- I had heard them play a gig back in February -- but I had no idea how perfect they were for our crowd -- song after song, they had everyone in the place singing and dancing along. I had told myself I was going to retreat to the backstage area to try and rest for a bit before the Evil Prince set, but I couldn't help but join everyone in singing and dancing.

Until it was time to shave my head.

I had mentioned this briefly in an e-mail before the gig, but I'm well aware that I ramble in e-mails and that nobody makes it down to the bottom (seriously, are you still reading this?): I planned on shaving my head at the gig. An anonymous donor offered me a substantial donation if I did it. Truth be told, I've always thought about doing it, but figured I never had a good enough reason to fall back on if it looked bad. This seemed like the perfect excuse. And I thought: if you're gonna do it, why not do it in front of everybody? Go for broke!

The first thought was to shave the head right down to the scalp, Mr. Clean style -- but it was an elaborate plan to enact in the back of a dark bar, with hot water and razors and shaving cream and moisturizer, and I couldn't find a barber to donate their time to the event. So a good friend of mine lent me her clippers for the evening. She even had the blades replaced. I was nervous as all hell. See, as a kid, I had a real egg for a head.


I had tried numerous times to envision myself without hair, but I just couldn't imagine it. I just had a feeling it was going to be bad. Anyway, off we went, with my mother-in-law doing the honors.


Note on the right, how there's still some long hair to be shaved. Isn't that creepy? You can see on my face how nervous I was about it, but I absolutely trusted my MIL to do a good job.


After a while, our triathlon training buddy Jason joined in to give a hand. He's been shaving his head for many, many years -- I trusted him completely as well.


And then it was done.


And surprise, surprise -- I actually liked it. Not sure if everybody else felt the same:

But she eventually came around. And second surprise: Jess liked it as well!

And so then it was time for Evil Prince Ludwig. We originally had two separate sets of approximately 45-60 minutes planned, but we decided to capitalize on the audience's energy and play the whole thing in a row. We've never played for two hours straight before. It was definitely an endurance event of its own -- I was sneaking protein bars in between songs -- but I think the audience really enjoyed our performance. And as we played our encore, the clock struck midnight and I turned 33. On my birthday, I was standing on a stage in front of an enthusiastic audience, playing music with my friends, and raising money for an important cause. It is without hyperbole that I say it was the best birthday of my entire life.

I don't actually know how many people attended or who gave what -- I'm sure that information is somewhere in Jessica's notebook -- but when we stumbled home at 2 in the morning and counted the money, we found we had raised $1105 -- $105 over my original goal.

So I want to thank you. I want to thank you if you were there and donated. I want to thank you if you weren't there but sent your best wishes to us. And I want to thank you just for reading this, because we know you're out there and you have our back. Thank you for once again proving to us that we have the best, most dedicated Support Team in the world. We are lucky and grateful and humbled and we love you to pieces.

There's more to come: more training, and a couple of very special posts about the people we're honoring with this event. Stay tuned!

The Benefit!

Holy cow, I am so excited for this gig.


If you know me, you know how much I love playing music. I feel incredibly lucky to be a founding member of two awesome bands that play music that I love and that appeals to other people as well. Even though Mike and I are in both of the bands -- Acoustic '80s and Evil Prince Ludwig (the Indestructible) -- I keep them pretty separate in my head. We rarely perform at the same venue together. But for this one night, we get to do so -- and all in the name of KICKING CANCER'S ASS! How awesome is that?

Acoustic '80s is planning a 90-minute set consisting of our "greatest hits," so to speak, along with six songs featuring Jennifer Gembs on lead vocals. Jen, Mike and I first performed together 18 years ago (HOLY CRAP WE ARE SO OLD) and it's been too long since she last joined us for an '80s gig. She is a phenomenal singer and I can't wait to hear her kick the crap out of the songs she's chosen.

The Hometown Sweethearts are a kick-ass trio featuring my buddy Dan Gottesman on drums. These guys do a great job on crowd cover-tune favorites and are somehow tight and loose all at the same time. They're graciously donating their time to the middle slot of the evening while Mike and I recover. (Actually, something else will be happening with me during the middle slot, but it's still a secret.)

Closing out the night is my other band, Evil Prince Ludwig (the Indesctructible). I love playing with these guys -- it's such a ball to play varied music and instruments and throw in the harmonies as well. I think getting us all on that small stage is going to be a challenge, but we've played smaller stages. :)

We are in all different stages of rehearsals, prepping for this really fantastic event. Truth be told, I am already a bundle of nerves, but I really can't wait. I hope you'll join us!

Kick-Off!

This post is coming a few weeks late, but Team in Training's summer triathlon kick-off event was pretty powerful stuff, and I wanted to make sure I mentioned it.

Before any season of endurance events (half-marathon, marathon, triathlon, etc), Team in Training holds lots of informational sessions, almost on a weekly basis in every borough, as a way to recruit people to join the team and raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. As I mentioned, Jess and I went to one in December, and then another one in January, which is when we signed up to do the triathlon. At these events, you get to hear a little bit about TNT and why the fundraising we're doing is so important. After we signed up, we had about six weeks of just waiting for things to start, while TNT held many other recruitment events. It all led to the Official Kick-Off, held on February 24th at the New York Blood Center on 67th Street.

Jess couldn't make it because she had to work, and I barely made it, having scheduled the first day at my new job (did I tell you I have a new job? And it's actually somewhat related to my fundraising? More on that in a separate post), a kids' playwriting event back in Astoria, and the kick-off all in a 10-hour period. I was beat, having commuted to Astoria and NYC twice in one day, but had a feeling it'd be an event I wouldn't want to miss.

I walked in and saw a pretty awesome group of people, all filing in to take their seats. (This auditorium eventually became standing room only.)

So this was the group I was going to be spending the next five months with. I looked around and wondered how many would always be strangers to me, how many would be people I recognized at different events, and how many I'd wind up becoming true friends with, having bonded over this intense goal. No time to find out, though, as Director Veronica Perez took the stage to introduce herself and tell us more about the importance of our training and fundraising.

She then introduced her support staff, the triathlon coaches, and the mentors. Before long, there were at least 50 people standing on the stage. These are the people taking us to the finish line.


Mike Woods, meteorologist from Fox 5's Good Day New York also talked for a short time. I love this guy -- I watch him in the mornings from the gym. He said he'd be doing the training with us -- I was skeptical at first, but in the past two weeks, I've seen him at two group sessions, so I'm guessing he's serious about it. He doesn't know it yet but I plan on beating him in the triathlon.

One of the very best things about Team in Training is their "Honored Teammate" program. Honored Teammates are people who have been affected by leukemia, lymphoma and other blood cancers. They're at the information sessions and at our group training sessions -- they're the people who remind us why we're doing what we're doing. This is Murph. Murph spoke about how cancer affected his life, how he lived in denial about his diagnosis, and how hard the disease was not only on him, but on the people around him. He spoke of TNT (and their parent organization, LLS) and how important their work had been to his struggle for survival. I'm not doing his speech justice, but it was profound and powerful and moving. And Murph's family -- his mother, his wife, his beautiful baby -- were in the audience to hear the whole thing. Wow.

Honored Teammates are not just people who have worked with the LLS or TNT. They're anybody you know who has been affected by cancer. You'll hear about George, Jessica's grandfather and honored teammate, and Melissa, my honored teammate, in future posts.

Wrapping up our kick-off event was Scott Willett, our head triathlon coach. Scott runs Tri-Life, an unbelievable coaching program, and he is 100% dedicated to us each week in helping us reach our triathlon goals. Seriously, we get a six-to-eight page e-mail every week with detailed training tips for every single day. Some might grow to dislike Scott for his unbridled enthusiasm at any moment, such as when we ran in the pouring rain and wind last Saturday. Not me. I love this guy.


At this point, none of us had any idea what we were in for -- and to be fair, we still really don't know, as he's starting us off very gentle and easy. I have a feeling he's going to kick our asses. I'm really excited about it. He told us all about what our training would entail, and assured us that he -- and all of our triathlon coaches -- would be there for us every step of the way, willing to answer any questions or give us the personal attention we need. People like him are why I signed up in the first place...but people like Murph are why I'm sticking around.

And with that, the Kick-Off was over. I sat in one of the front rows so I could take photos, and every so often, I'd turn around to look at the sea of enthusiastic triathletes, many of them new like me, some of them veterans of both triathlons and Team in Training, but all nervously excited about the road ahead.