On November 6, 1988, Bruce Cleland assembled a NYC Marathon team to raise money in honor of his daughter, a leukemia survivor.
38 runners raised $322,000 for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's (LLS) work to discover new treatments for blood cancers. Those 38 runners were the first Team In Training.
Bruce learned that his two-year old daughter, Georgia, had been diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia. "In a word, it was terrifying." Bruce recalls, "At that time, whenever I heard someone had leukemia, it was usually a death sentence. In those days the survival rate was only about 5 percent."
Beating the odds, little Georgia went into remission after two years of rigorous chemotherapy and radiation treatment. But the experience left Bruce feeling restless---and determined to act. One night, while tossing and turning in bed, Bruce hatched a crazy, ambitious idea: to run the upcoming 1988 New York City Marathon in Georgia's honor.
"It seemed like a really difficult thing to do, but a heroic thing to do," Bruce, a former rugby player, explains. "I thought if I could get some other people involved and form a team where we all depend on each other and leaned on each other, all had a common goal of raising money for a very worthy cause like leukemia research…it just seemed to me that that might work."
In today's world, the concept of running a marathon for charity is commonplace. But back in 1988, Bruce's notion was something of a novelty--marathons were seen as a lofty feat, reserved for only the most prestigious of athletes. "Some people called me crazy, but pretty quickly a lot of other people started signing on," Bruce says.
During the next 25 years, LLS's Team In Training (TNT) has become the leader in endurance sports training for charity, funding significant therapies like chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants, which have a significant impact on blood cancer patients.
Today, LLS funds only the most promising advances; targeted therapies like Gleevec®, Velcade® and Dacogen® take aim at cancer cells, and destroy them. Immunotherapies use a patient's own immune system to kill cancer. And the repurposing of existing drugs for arthritis and antifungals to fight specific leukemias are breakthroughs that allow patients to live their best life, today.
TNT and LLS fundraising efforts through marathons, triathlons, cycling and hiking really are making cures happen.
Visit My Team In Training Fundraising Page to make a donation for a better life today
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