Book Excerpts:

….I returned to practice back on Friday, with my tail in between my legs. Coach already knew I had been up to something, and with me on the Varsity line up, it was essential that I be around at every single practice everyday. I managed to keep my secret dual life for about two weeks, I would run cross country practice really quick and skip the cool down explaining to coach that I go to the gym after school and would do my push ups and sit ups there. Then I would rush over to the other end of the school and run into the drama room, covered in dry sweat and begin rehearsing my lines, only to be reprimanded by Swan for showing up late and having no excuse for it. I felt left I was being left behind in cross country as Zach and Ryan progressively got faster and I felt I was losing my grip in acting as everyone had already begun memorizing their lines and were now busy on essential cast relationship building activities……………….
……….Perhaps this was the reason I was here, perhaps I was just a spawn of society looking for some social attention and maybe even get a spot on the news…hell I would like to think that by this point in my fundraising project I was beyond that, but I knew deep inside that was partly the reason I was here, to prove myself to the rest of society that some crazy ass 18 year old kid could run 100 miles around a high school track…that thank god wasn’t the only reason anymore, I had been doing research as of late on the survival rate of Leukemia victims and the average age of the people who are diagnosed with the cancer, what I had found moved me deeply, it was people like Andrew, young and full of potential who were in the age range most susceptible to the cancer…the survival rate of Acute Myeloid Leukemia (the one of four that Andrew was diagnosed with) was a terrifyingly low 21.3% chance, I knew it safe in my heart that Andrew had thankfully already made it through the Cancer part of this ordeal, but was now sadly in the hospital diagnosed with over ten different diseases and inflammations from a weakened immune system (that was due to chemotherapy). I felt like hell for even thinking about doing this thing for myself, I wanted to call it all off and tell the world that I am phony that I am doing this project, this run, my last run, my life for myself…I had become frustrated and agitated in discovering that I was just a product of society…that I was just like every other runner out there in the world…

…… Looking back now on the project and the impact it made on both myself and the community of San Diego, it is difficult for me to say that I just ran 3000 miles and that I just raised 16,047 dollars..The Project dug itself so much deeper than just numbers…it became an inspiration for others, it gave hope to the hopeless, it changed lives, hastened research methods and personally gave me the most gratifying feeling of all truly knowing that I made a difference for the better in the lives of others..I had truly lived up to my quote, “I’ll endure so they don’t have to”
….........So Charlie’s quote stands strong in my belief of the competitors of Badwater you must have suffered greatly to complete this race…physically I believe I could have taken almost anybody’s body off of the street and with my own mind in their body, dragged them across the 135 mile stretch with my drive and determination……