Triathlete Honors Father's Battle with Cancer

Roger Custer has been a cyclist since the 15- to 20-mile bike rides he and his father would take when he was a kid in Southern California. 

Now Custer will bike, swim and run in the Philadelphia Triathlon next weekend on behalf of his father Stephen who recently began chemotherapy for a lymphomatic growth in the tissue around his kidney, raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS). 

Custer, an executive director of the nonprofit organization America's Future Foundation, began his work with LLS about four years ago when he started taking cycling more seriously.

In 2008, he signed up for a century ride, or a 100-mile bike ride, and decided he would use it to raise money for a cause. He thought of his friend Sara, who had battled and defeated leukemia in high school, and chose LLS. He used Team in Training, an LLS program that prepares participants both in their training and their fundraising, to get himself started.

"I just thought if I'm going to spend all this time on endurance training for long bike rides and triathlons, I might as well do it to help other people instead of just doing it for myself," the 30-year-old Oakton resident said.

Since that first century ride, Custer has completed four events — three triathlons — to raise more than $8,300 for LLS. He now serves as a mentor to six Team in Training triathletes who will compete in the Philadelphia Triathlon with Custer on June 24.

"It's really a blessing for me to be able to help other people raise money for this cause and also do endurance training because service is really important to my faith," Custer said. "Now that I have this personal connection with my dad's diagnosis, it's even more special to watch all these other people spending their free time to help others."

His team meets twice a week for training. On Tuesdays, the group swims at the Lab School in Georgetown from 5:30 to 6:30 a.m. then runs for 30 to 45 minutes. On Saturdays, they take a bike ride that can range from an hour to more than two hours, then they run for about an hour.

"So all of us on the team, we get to know each other pretty well exercising together," Custer said. "It really is a neat community that forms with Team in Training, and that's why people come back so often."

That sense of community is what has helped Custer and his family through his father's diagnosis. Though Stephen's case is not aggressive, he has suffered side effects from the chemotherapy, which caused a lung infection and sent him to the hospital for about a week. His second chemotherapy treatment has been pushed to late July.

"He's a good sport and a man of faith, which I think helps in these situations. But he seems to be doing well. He's like me, he's always doing something," said Custer, adding his father is a member of a cycling club and a retired cellist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic who now teaches music to children. "He's just a really active guy, so it's been tough for him to scale back his activities to rest and let the treatment take its course."

Since he began working with LLS, he has seen a fellow church member at McLean Presbyterian diagnosed with leukemia and grieved with a friend who lost his mother to the same disease.

"It seems like every few months someone I know is affected by leukemia, and now it's just more personal than it has been," Custer said.

Custer will be participating in six triathlons this year, two on behalf of LLS. In September, he will ride his father's old bicycle in the Los Angeles Triathlon near his father's home in Thousand Oaks, Calif.

"I hope that his treatments will be over by then, and he'll be able to come out and fully enjoy seeing his son do that," Custer said.

To donate to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society through Roger Custer's page, click here. 

This article has been corrected to show Custer works for America's Future Foundation and trains with his team at the Lab School in Georgetown.

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