Market:  New York

Athlete:  David Carraturo (IRC Securities)

The New York Decathlon will be my 5th consecutive Decathlon. Many parts of my life have changed during this time, and with each year that I make that decision to register – I am also cognizant of the importance of reaching my fundraising goals. Transitioning from a firm with a thousand employees to one with four employees each year I have had to rethink my ability to raise even the bare minimum needed to qualify to compete.

The training has always been the fun part for me. I enjoy every aspect of getting ready physically for mid-June to arrive. Thankfully, while walking onto the St. Johns University turf each year I had also been lucky enough to meet my fundraising goals as well – but each year that is the part of the equation that I am always most angst about. And this is the most important part of the whole thing. I have the same thoughts - will my core network contribute again? Will I get any surprise donations? Can I think out of the box to gather funds and expand my scope and raise awareness for pediatric cancer research at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center? And each year, I am floored by the myriad of support and the anecdotal responses and notes of encouragement I receive. My network has continued to expand and through my work with other charitable endeavors, I have been able to leverage my family and friends to raise awareness and support for P.O.E.T.I.C.

My initial decision to compete came at a time in my life when I really needed a cause to rally around. My mother had recently passed away, and I began to soul search for a way to give back to the community. It did not take much convincing for me to embrace the event. As the father of three daughters, supporting pediatric cancer research resonated. On top of this, I have seen the horrors of watching my father die from pancreatic cancer when I was fourteen.

From event one back in 2012, I knew what my strengths and weaknesses would be. My aged legs and the five events centered around the use of them would never provide the drive necessary to motivate me to not only train but to rally the troops to support my cause. Thankfully, a decathlon is ten events and the remaining five not centered on running and jumping have been able to keep me going and to energize my fundraising efforts.

Each year I have two goals split up into parts – dollars to raise and athletic performance to achieve. I always want my fundraising to exceed the prior year in number of contributors and dollars. I am grateful to have reached this goal every year and am now over the $20k cumulative level. For my athletic performance, I am also proud to have improved in my core events each year – and embrace my top four events: the bench press, dips, pull-ups and football throw.

Last year was challenging though. The week prior to the event, all was going well and then I felt a searing pain in my left hamstring during one of my final prep runs around the track. I train for this event year round, so I was disheartened by possibly not being able to compete in the running events – I could barely walk with less than a week to go.  With excruciating pain and frustration, I was able to squeak out minimal points in the leg events. This made my core events even more important – as I did not want to simply show up.  I achieved personal bests in pull-ups (26) and dips (61) exceeding my goals in both, however, my performance-based contributions hinged on the bench press. I had set the bench press record in 2013 (42 reps), and hit 41 reps in 2014.  I was proud to stand on the podium during the awards ceremony post-event those years with some amazing competitors – the majority 20-25 years younger than me.

As I got comfortable under the bar, I focused on the task for the next minute. I needed to push out an impressive number for my contributions to get juiced and also to show myself that I could literally put my money where my mouth was. I had never been shy about what my 50 year old muscles could accomplish – and I needed not just a good but a great performance to salvage the day because of my leg injury woes. My wife, oldest daughter Samantha and brother were all in the stands cheering me on. My gray haired group members were all rooting for me and I had heard rumblings that there was a young gun set to dethrone me. Would I fizzle like 2014 when my rallying cry was 50 reps before my 50th birthday only to fall far short by nine reps? I knew 2015 was not 2014, and another year of age meant very little as I cranked out 32 reps before I even paused. Twelve more reps followed for a grand total of 44. I bested my 2013 mark and my performance-based contributions increased too. 

Embracing my family after this was all over meant the world to me and I really did not even care that my bench press record was bested a half hour later by one rep.

I’m back.  And I’m bringin’ it.

-David