Also See:
Story by:
SPOKANE -- More than 2,000 men and women will be participating in Ironman Coeur d'Alene this weekend. For one Spokane firefighter, his journey will help change lives for years to come.
Spokane Fire Department Division Chief Art Nichols has had a 26-year career with the department and shows no signs of slowing down. At 54-years-old he's preparing to tackle his fourth Ironman in a row coming up this weekend.
"It's probably after my second Ironman that I was finally able to make it to the banquet afterwards and that's when I learned about the Janus Charity Challenge. Before I really didn't know what it was about, once I saw that I said I can do that," Nichols said.
The Janus Charity Challenge is a fundraising program helping Ironman participants raise money for non-profit organizations. Last year Art raised $18,000 for Operation Smile, a children's charity treating facial deformities such as cleft lips and palates all around the world.
This year he hoping to raise more than $21,000 for 'Hearts in Motion', which performs surgery for Operation Smile.
Art's race almost didn't happen after he took a nasty fall during a training ride in April.
"The crank arm broke about two-and-a-half hours into my ride, so I went down, landed on my back, hit my head, broke my scapula, four ribs, clavicle, punctured lung and now I've got vertigo, dizzy spells, but not when I swim, I'm OK when I swim," He said.
It took some time to get his strength back but Art made a commitment to raising money for charity and he's sticking to it.
"It won't be my best race, it wasn't my goal to just come out racing but I've gotta do it, gotta do it for the program, got to do it for the Hearts in Motion, gotta do it for myself."
Art hopes to travel to Guatemala next year to see first hand how the money he's raising is being used.
http://www.kxly.com/global/video/popup/pop_playerLaunch.asp?vt1=v&clipFormat=flv&clipId1=3876808&at1=News&h1=Firefighter running Ironman for a good cause
No comments:
Post a Comment