‘What changed was finding that I could stick to a regimen and follow a process to get me to the finish line. I got down to 172 pounds.’

NOAH LAM, STONY BROOK

“I was overweight at 245 pounds in 2007, balancing a pint of ice cream on my belly and watching Forrest Gump run across America. I decided to run the 2008 New York City Marathon. I was totally clueless and started with a 10K, then learned about 5K runs. It took me a while to figure out the schedule. What changed was finding that I could stick to a regimen and follow a process to get me to the finish line. I got down to 172 pounds.

“In 2013, I had a seizure. Waking up in the hospital made me think about life and all the possibilities that I have not ventured. I had wanted to register for a full Ironman. I couldn’t even swim across the pool, let alone do a 2.4-mile swim.

“My biggest inspiration to try the triathlon was when my then-preteen daughter was feeling stuck in life, and we talked about change. She said she knew it was possible because she’d seen me do it. Knowing that she’d been watching, and that I’d made an impact on her, shifted the focus for me.

“Since then, I’ve completed 12 marathons and one full Ironman triathlon in 2014: 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike and a 26.2-mile run. From the Ironman, I understood that I could do more than I thought was possible.

“My fitness journey inspired my wife to also do marathons as well as a full Ironman triathlon. And that led to my son starting to get into triathlon. He got competitive and really good at the sport. But I realized going to different races around the country that it wasn’t available to a lot of kids. I noticed that there was a big gap between who’s doing racing and who’s not doing racing. There was no real program out there that had kids doing triathlon as a sport.

“I decided to pay it forward by creating the nonprofit youth triathlon team the Lightning Warriors in 2017. The mission is triathlon for all kids. The vision is that encouraging lifelong fitness begins by inspiring our youth. We have about 111 boys and girls ages 7 to 17 on the roster now from both counties and Brooklyn and Queens.”

I learned the cancer has been growing for about 10 years, which means I’ve been swimming, biking and running with it growing.

“Since creating the team, we’ve helped hundreds of kids cross the finish line of different youth triathlons, including our own race, the Mini Maniac Youth Triathlon, established in 2019. We’ve supported several kids who qualify for nationals, and one has qualified for worlds 2024.

“Also, in 2023, we earned the New York State high school club championship. We help families who cannot afford to participate. But towards the end of July 2023, I was diagnosed with a nodule in the thyroid, and with further tests and scans, it turned out to be a metastasized papillary thyroid carcinoma infiltrating the thyroid, surrounding lymph nodes and moved a little to the lungs.

“It’s a slow-growing cancer that was finally discovered by a pre-exam for a colonoscopy. I learned the cancer has been growing for about 10 years, which means I’ve been swimming, biking and running with it growing. I believe that if I were not that active, we probably wouldn’t be having this dialogue. But my family and I are very glad that we can now stop it, so I can continue to help more kids and do more things for the community.

“I’m doing a clinical trial to reduce the cancer to make my surgery less morbid. I’ve gained some weight with all the stress, but now that we have a solution, I’m feeling better and getting back on the horse to get back into shape. I don’t think I would have been able to deal with this mentally without the training that I’ve done. With all my training, I’ve learned you can push through a lot more than you think you could. I would say weight loss is a big factor in terms of making sure this is managed a little bit better.

“I recommend everyone always get a checkup. I think we take things for granted and don’t realize how important we are in people’s lives, so we need to maintain our health.

“Having the big picture and vision that involves knowing that you need to stay healthy, and that you can lean on others to make sure that your vision happens, is important.”

Interviewed by Liza N. Burby