Market: New York

Athlete: David Lazarus (Trillium Trading)

This June was my second Wall Street Decathlon. I started fundraising for Memorial Sloan Kettering in 2014 for a different charity supporting the same cause, Cycle for Survival. One of our close friend’s nephews, Luke, was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma at the age of three. As if that wasn’t reason enough to get involved, one of my wife’s friends from residency has a son Max who was also diagnosed with stage-four neuroblastoma also at the age of three. Because of their treatments at Memorial Sloan Kettering, both Max and Luke have survived these deadly cancers for much longer than thought possible.

Given these and other truly tragic but inspiring stories I couldn’t overlook another opportunity to leverage my love of athleticism to raise funds for an incredible cause. When I heard about The Decathlon last year I knew, despite being based in Miami, I would need to train for it and make my way up in June to compete.

When I first began training in 2015 I set my goals high and tackled my training with enthusiasm. As a result in that first week I managed to t-rex myself by overdoing the pull-ups, and was unable to unbend my arms for 10 days afterward. From there I settled into a more realistic training schedule. I was certain if I worked hard enough, I could max out points in dips, bench press, and pull-ups.

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 game day is always a different experience. Going from the bar in my gym to a bar in the middle of a field, in the middle of June, I found myself struggling to maintain my rhythm and by 23 pull-ups, I was cooked. I grudged out one more and got to 24 after which I 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 to get the last pull-up done and reach my fundraising goal for that event.

It took the support of my fellow athletes cheering for me and stabilizing the bar to get me to that final number. That was when I realized that as athletes on that field we were competing as much alongside each other as we were against each other. While there was the undeniable drive in all of us to be the best, in the end we were all working towards the same goal – to raise money for an amazing cause.

In retrospect maybe last year I should have set a lower goal, one that I could more easily have achieved 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 my very, very best.

So, coming into 2016 I set my goals high so that I could live up to them and through them make a difference for kids like Luke and Max.