May 12, 2011
The modern marathon serves as a symbol of strength, endurance and dedication.
To successfully train for and eventually finish the race, one must develop a great deal of mental toughness, an elite level of physical conditioning and the ability to battle through intense amounts of fatigue and exhaustion.
Due to this daunting set of challenges, individuals from Boston to Tokyo often select a motivating factor to help push them past adversity and through to the finish line.
Whether it’s the reason for running in the first place or simply something to help achieve a performance goal, motivators can serve as key ingredients in seeing a long-distance race through to the end.
For monogram winner Rob Williamson ’93 (lacrosse), finding a cure for cancer has served as motivation in various aspects of his life since leaving the Golden Dome.
Diagnosed with a type of blood cancer known as Hodgkin’s lymphoma in the fall of his junior year at Notre Dame, Williamson left school to undergo chemotherapy and radiation to fight and eventually conquer the disease.
After a year of treatments, Williamson was officially cancer free, and returned to the University for his senior season.
Now, almost 20 years later, Williamson has started brainstorming fundraising efforts to help provide treatments for the disease to others and eventually find a cure.
While looking for ideas, Williamson came across the website for Team in Training, an organization dedicated to helping individuals form groups to prepare for marathons, while raising money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.
The prospects of forming a marathon team with the help of the organization seemed like a perfect way for Williamson to fulfill his goals.
“Everyone has some type of touch with cancer and has been affected by it in one way or another,” Williamson said. “I wanted to organize a team effort that would make our participants healthier while doing something that can actually make a difference.”
Williamson is working to establish a virtual team, which will communicate periodically and connect with a Team in Training coach to set performance objectives, push each other to meet those objectives, and coordinate times to go over their training results.
Along with his wife, Aimee ’93, Rob’s team will also consist of Monogram Club board member Chris Parent ’93 and his wife, Melissa ’00 J.D., as well as other individuals with Notre Dame ties.
Training for the marathon with members of the Notre Dame community is important to Williamson, as the University provided him with a multitude of support during his bout with cancer.
While going through his treatments, he received words of encouragement, gifts, and visits from friends, lacrosse coaches, administrators and professors. Notre Dame held a Mass for Williamson in the Dillon Hall chapel, and some of his friends skipped spring break in more tropical locations to visit him at home in Colorado.
“The outreach came from people that were already close to me to people that I barely knew it all,” Williamson said. “You always hear about Notre Dame being a family and it’s so true. The support was unbelievable.”
Keeping with the Notre Dame theme, Williamson has chosen to run the Chicago Marathon on Oct. 9. He felt strongly about that particular race, as the Irish football team will play Air Force the day before on Oct. 8 in Notre Dame Stadium.
It will be almost 20 years to the day when he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease while home in Colorado, watching the Irish take on Air Force in Colorado Springs. The Irish won that 1991 contest, 28-15.
“Had the Irish lost, it would have been a really bad weekend,” Williamson said. “Twenty years later, we plan on seeing them win again, then achieving our lifelong goal of completing the marathon together.”
It’s a sign of things truly coming full circle for Rob Williamson.
Although he feels blessed to have survived the disease, he knows there are thousands of children and young adults that haven’t been as fortunate.
“There are still people that are dying from this everyday,” Williamson said. “Blood cancers are the number one disease killer of children. Research needs to be done and cures need to be found.”
To visit Rob’s Team in Training website and learn how you can get involved, click here.Williamson can be reached at rob.williamson@comcast.net.
— ND —