RACING FOR ANDREA

I received word today that my friend, Andrea Fisher, is going in for surgery tomorrow to remove her spleen. Andrea is the person who has motivated me to race in honor of the Livestrong Foundation at Ironman Wisconsin.

She has been fighting a rare form of cancer that started on her tongue and has metastasized in several places throughout her body. She has been undergoing chemotherapy for several months and the tumors have been shrinking with the treatment. The doctors, however, have decided to remove Andrea's spleen as the cancer has spread there.

Since being diagnosed, Andrea has endured several tongue and jaw surgeries, radiation, chemotherapy and living with a deep and constant pain. Through it all, she has shown a spirit and heart that both inspires and humbles me.

I have known Andrea for more than half my life. She is married to my best friend, Steve, who I have known since the first day of 7th grade in 1977. Through the years, Andrea has also become one of my best and closest friends. Steve and Andrea will raise my daughter, Keats, if anything were to happen to my x-wife, Anne, my wife, Meena, and me.

I have always loved the fact that the Fishers have treated Keats as their own, loving and caring for her with an open heart. My daughter's world is much larger because of their love. She understands the meaning and responsibility of friendship, kindness, and generosity because that is what has been given to her freely by not only the Fishers but all of my closest friends.

There is nothing more comforting, I think, than knowing your child is cared and loved for by others outside your immediate family. There is a sense of community and faith in the world that quiets the skeptic in me.

My coach, Muddy Waters, has told me that the Ironman is "just a long day of exercise." And, frankly, in light of what my friend Andrea is going through, nothing could be truer. There is a part of me that understands what is going on; that, in the starkest of realities, understands that Andrea is fighting for her life. It is a fact that on certain levels, I can manage, contain and keep at a distance because, I believe, that is what men do (at least what I do) to manage the emotionality of it all.

But there is the deeper and more difficult struggle of the "why" that, when I allow myself, overwhelms me. Andrea is one of the kindest, considerate, loving, gentlest people I know. She has always been mindful of her health, her body, spirit and family. And the idea of her being sick does not make sense to me.

There have been times in my life when I have lived in darkness. I have struggled. I have lived uneasily without gratitude or breath. Through those times, Andrea has been one of a few who stuck with me, who believed in me when I did not. Like my daughter, Andrea taught me the deeper meaning of friendship. She simplified the world for me, uncomplicated it with a gentle heart and compassion that renewed my trust in all things.

That trust is being tested now, but I know to lose faith is to sacrifice the gift Andrea has given to me. So as I begin to train for Ironman Wisconsin, my purpose is very clear. It is true and important that I am racing for the Livestrong Foundation, but, really, I am racing for her.