Breakfast of Champions

Breakfast of Champions
Skip in his Seattle marathon shirt at one of his famous fundraising breakfasts for the LLS

What it means to be "golden" from teammate Michelle De Grand

Our 'Golden' Friends: Gold is considered a precious metal with a very high value. A golden personality is even more precious, and there are few people in this world with that shining spirit. Two people who I am doing this climb in memory of had that priceless zest for life and compassion for other people. Skip Sand passed away last year after a five year battle with Leukemia, but he never once quit living life or caring for others. In fact, he was even growing his hair out for the Locks of Love at the time of his death. He was a truly inspirational and authentic person who was taken away too soon. If we can help cure just one person like Skip, this world will be exponentially better because those people have a positive impact on everyone they meet. My grandfather, Curly DeGrand, is another one of those people. Before he was taken away by a blood cancer, he was active, friendly, social, and caring. All of my memories of him include a smiling face. He didn't live to see all of his grand children. My young cousins won't get to have the adventures with him that I did or know his voice and curly hair. If we can join together and save the grandfathers of the world, their knowledge and positive influences, then think how much wiser a society we'll be. Losing those 'golden' people is hard, but it makes us realize why we need to fight so hard for the golden people to come.

by Michelle DeGrand on Mon, Jan 25, 2010 @ 7:26 PM

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Big Climb 2010 Wrapup

Well we all had a fantastic time this year and are excited for Big Climb 2011!

We were successful in raising $3,310 to help end blood cancer! Thank you to all the wonderful donors who contributed their support to us and the team for their effort!

Day of the event report:

It turned out to be a lovely day without rain in the NW although the forecast called for it. That certainly helps in your motivation to savor the view when you reach the top and also at the start as you line up outside to enter the stairwell.

From past events I knew there would be crowds of people making it difficult to locate each other. Therefore I chose a meeting spot that I knew for certain would be there and brought a gold mylar balloon with yellow stars so everybody could see me in the mass of people. I had chosen to meet in front of the bone marrow typing booth and to our luck, it was the only booth on the second floor away from the crowd and the first thing you encountered from the street entrance! So we had an easy time meeting together as a team shortly before our start time.

We all anxiously donned our Gold's Gym shirts, bib numbers, timing chips for the racers, slapped a photo of Skip our team honoree on our backs, and it was already time to line up! Riding the escalators down we were all pumped up and we got some nice pictures (check out the picassa slide show).

Before we knew it, I started out our team by being the first to enter the stairwell. They started each of us about 5-15 seconds apart. All 3 trainers immediately passed me within the first 10 floors! LOL

We had 11 racers and 7 climbers. Some of us were battling illness but we all gave it our very best shot! All I can say is that I was incredibly relieved to reach the top floor and IMMEDIATELY scouted out a water bottle. ;-)

The view was magnificent! While I waited for the rest of the racers and climbers to finish, the group who had completed the climb sauntered down to the recovery room on the 40th floor for oranges, apples, bagels and more bottled water while still taking in the marvelous view and sun peaking through the clouds.

When the climbers and I met back up with the team in front of the bone marrow typing tables, several were filling out applications for bone marrow donor matches! :D Isn't that incredibly nice?

From there, we headed over to the Pyramid Alehouse for our after event celebration reservations. They were wonderful with accommodating our large group in a special room with a long buffet style table. The food was great as well as the company! We had a lot of fun and look forward to next year!

If you have interest in being on the team with us next year, drop me an email at bluediverbeck at yahoo dot com with the subject heading "big climb".

Make sure to check out our photos at
http://picasaweb.google.com/103366840774496528971/20100322BigClimb?feat=email#

P.S. - Congratulations to our top male racer David Leach of the Bothell Gold's Gym with a time of 12:03 and our top female Racer Redmond Gold's Gym trainer Merrie Veico with a time of 12:08! Great job to both of you! You rock!

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Be Golden Team


Congrats to everyone on the Be Golden team on your accomplishment of reaching the top and helping to raise funding to beat blood cancers! More to come soon!

If you would like to donate to our team efforts, please visit the link to our team page in the right margin of this page. Thank you! :D