For Yati Yadav, who grew up in New Westminster, the highlight of his summer was a six-day bike race across the United States.
RAAM, or Ride Across America, is an almost 5,000-kilometre bike ride that starts in Oceanside, California, and ends in Annapolis, Maryland. Throughout the six days and 11 hours Yadav spent on the road with his team, they climbed more than 178,000 feet and crossed 12 states.
“It’s touted as the toughest endurance race on the planet,” Yadav said, which he added is a pretty accurate description of the bike race, mainly because of the heat, humidity and hills that seemed to appear around every corner.
But what the New West native, who’s participated in countless Ironman races, didn’t expect was how easy it was to stay motivated.
“We wanted to raise funds and also awareness for brain cancer research through Barrow’s hospital, which is a specialty hospital that focuses on brain and spinal research,” he said.
Yadav is an avid athlete. He has participated in Ironman competitions among other gruelling events. This time around though, the race had a special meaning because his race partner is currently fighting brain cancer and actually had chemotherapy treatments prior to and following the race. Witnessing such strength from his partner, Kyle Claffey, 19, was remarkable, and made finishing such an intense race all the more rewarding, Yadav said.
“The big difference is the feeling that you get from finishing. It’s not just about you. It’s about helping everybody that you’ve helped raise awareness for before the race, during the race, and now, following the race,” he said.
Yadav, who now lives and practises dentistry in Phoenix, Arizona, along with three other teams of two, helped raise more than $110,000 for Barrow Neurological Institute – a medical facility in the United States that specializes in treating patients with brain and spinal tumors.
“It was such an experience,” he said. “Most people, they want to (help), and I think we all have big hearts and we all want to give back. … When you’re doing it for charity, and you’re doing it for someone else, when you’re doing it for people other than yourself, you find the energy that you didn’t think that you had.”
