Motivation is easy to find for Lower Burrell resident running for life and death cause
Brian Sharick is no different.
Like most runners, there are times in the middle of a long, draining workout when the clouds of doubt roll in.
Then the questions come as easily as the beads of sweat:
"I don't have to be here. Why am I doing this?"
"Why don't I just quit?"
In those moments when self-doubt becomes the Lower Burrell resident's training partner, however, he knows what to do.
He thinks of Kelsey Johnson, who will be 3 in June, daughter of Randy and Linda Johnson of Lower Burrell.
Suddenly preparing for a marathon doesn't seem like such a big challenge.
"I just think of the battles Kelsey is dealing with, or any of these patients with leukemia, and there's nothing I'm doing that compares," he says.
Sharick, 41, an eighth-grade teacher in South Butler School District, is dedicating his return to marathoning after six years to Kelsey and others who are fighting the battle again leukemia.
He will run in the Pittsburgh Marathon on Sunday, his fifth Pittsburgh 26.2-miler, to raise funds and awareness for Kelsey and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
The costs -- financial, physical and emotional ---of battling the disease are enormous.
One day before Easter last year, at the age of 21 months, Kelsey was diagnosed with a cancer of the blood known as acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
Although she has been in remission for almost a full year, the prognosis, her mother says, is "a day-to-day thing." "There are no guarantees," Johnson says.
Kelsey has two-and-a-half more years of daily chemotherapy to endure.
For 29 days in the fall, with her immune system extremely low, she was a patient in Children's Hospital, Pittsburgh. "She was very, very sick with a life-threatening lung infection," Johnson says.
There will be no normalcy in the Johnson household until Kelsey is done with treatments at age 5. "She can't be around crowds. She can't be with people who have colds. She has to wear a mask on her face when she is out in public. She is secluded," Johnson says.
The Johnsons are touched by Sharick's involvement.
"I think this is the nicest thing anybody can do for her. He is honoring her and trying to help all her friends. It's just the kindest thing," Johnson says.
"Brian is doing a great thing. We are honored that he thought of Kelsey to do that," Randy Johnson adds.
The Johnsons knew Sharick when they attended Burrell High School. Sharick, 1980 graduate, was on the basketball team that went to the WPIAL finals in the late '70s, twice defeating eventual state champion and rival Valley High School.
At Knoch, he coached eighth-grade football and ninth-grade basketball and will coach eighth-grade boys basketball at Burrell next year. He and his wife, Stacie, have three children, ages 7 to 13.
He rises at 4:30 a.m. weekdays to get in his workouts, taking as little time as possible away from his family.
He became aware of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Team In Training program for marathon runners while his sister-in-law, Carol Sharick, in Amherst, Mass., was being treated for leukemia. "She is doing fine and suggested I run in the name of Kelsey," he says.
He says he feels proud, honored and inspired to do so. He has raised more than $4,000 in just two months, with family, friends and his students getting involved.
"It's a really good cause for people to become involved with. You never know who will be sick. We never expected this. Kelsey was born perfectly healthy," Linda Johnson says. "A decade ago or 15 years ago, Kelsey probably wouldn't have survived a couple months. Because of the research that has been done, it has been wonderful."
Kelsey has a brother, Seth, 5, who is healthy.
The Johnsons were in disbelief when they received their daughter's diagnosis. "I didn't know anything about this disease until she got it," her dad says. "Then it's a wake-up call. I would tell people not to take life for granted. This could happen to anybody."
Sharick is trying to call attention to that in his running.
Look closely at his wrist when he is training, and when he negotiates the streets of Pittsburgh on Sunday, and you will see a band with Kelsey's name on it.
"It's a reminder that what I'm doing pales in comparison to what all these kids and adults are going through," he says.
Those who want to contribute in Kelsey's name can make checks payable to Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, Two Gateway Center, 13N, Pittsburgh, PA 15222. Call 1-800-726-CURE.
