Market:  New York

Athlete:  David Lazarus (Trillium Trading)

This June will be my second Decathlon. 

I started fundraising for Memorial Sloan Kettering in 2014 for a different event supporting the same cause, Cycle for Survival. One of our closest friend’s nephews, Luke, was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma at the age of three. In addition to Luke, one of my wife’s friends from residency has a son Max who was diagnosed with stage four neuroblastoma also at the age of 3. Because of their treatments at Memorial Sloan Kettering, both Max and Luke have survived these deadly cancers for much longer than thought possible by undergoing the newest, sometimes experimental treatments offered at this fine hospital. Now I have switched my focus to The Decathlon.

So, how did I get involved?  Being based in Miami, an event in New York City was pretty far off of my radar. I am 42 years old, but in great shape, and still play a lot of basketball, tennis, and sometimes soccer. I joined an over 35 team at the JCC a couple of years ago and one of the guys on the team, Henry, said, “Dave, you should do The Decathlon! My friend Clinton does it every year and I think you would do great! Too bad vertical leap isn’t one of the events!” 

I went online after the game and saw the vertical leap WAS on of the ten events. That was it. I was sold. I started training in December, but hadn’t lifted weights for a couple of years, and had not been running much. This event was the perfect motivator to do both.

I was certain if I worked hard enough, I could max out points in dips, bench press, and pull-ups. I was wrong! In fact, I had the audacity to choose pull-ups as my marquis event and set my goal at 25, when the most I had ever done was 18. Bad idea. Once June rolled around I was comfortably doing 25 pull-ups in my workouts, but as I found out the day of the event not only in the pull-ups event, but also in the bench press and dips, things don’t always go your way on race day. 

I found myself struggling to maintain my rhythm as I rocked back and forth through the middle of the Pull-up event.  Luckily, some of my fellow competitors jumped in and stabilized the bar.  At 23 reps, I was cooked.  I dug deep, got the 24th rep, and hung there exhausted for what felt like minutes.  

I knew that every pull up shy of 25 would cost the charity close to $1000 since I convinced all my donors to donate based on performance, thinking I was going to do 30 pull-ups and raise a lot more money. 

Fortunately I was able to summon the strength for 1 more rep (25!) and reach my fundraising goal.  Had my fellow competitors not stepped in and stabilized the bar it would have been a complete disaster.  This was when I realized that not only was this a competition, but everyone was competing with the same goal – to raise money for an amazing cause. This was when I really got into the event and the camaraderie in my group really set in. You are grouped with other competitors with whom you will be going through all of the events together. We all supported each other cheering until we went hoarse and helping every member of our group achieve the best results that they could that day.

In retrospect maybe I should have chosen a lower goal that I could easily achieve in order to raise more money. However, I think that a big part of the challenge for me is setting a goal and trying to reach it. If I exceed it, I will know that I did well. So, I am setting my goal this year in bench press at 25 reps, having done 23 last year. I believe I will be able to achieve this goal even though this is one of the last events, and hopefully get 3 or 4 more reps and raise even more money. Another way I am raising more money this year is by encouraging other members of my firm to participate in the Decathlon. So far I convinced one other member to participate, and have another potential participant for 2017.

During training it is easy to get caught up with how you are going to do in the event and exceeding your goals and scores from previous years. Sometimes I need to stop and remind myself why I am doing this. To raise as much money as for kids like Luke and Max so they can get the treatment that they need to survive. Currently both of them are in remission. Their treatment at Sloan Kettering has not only let them survive, but thrive in the face of these rare and deadly cancers.

Bring it, 

Dave