Find Your Passion

By Debbie
February 4, 2010 on 1:04 am | In Giving Back | 1 Comment

What’s your passion? For some, it might be quiet, seemingly endless trails. For others, it may be a newly paved road, still closed to car traffic. But for a few, they have found their passion in helping others by using their racing as a means to raise money for various charities. One of those few is Clif Stargardt, longtime customer of TriSports.com and Deuces Wild participant.

Clif embarked on his first race fundraising back 2005 in Coeur d’Alene. A self-professed feeling of selfishness for the time spent so focused only on himself prompted him to sign up for the Janus Charity Challenge. He chose to raise funds for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital after doing some research online. He was very moved by the images of the children fighting cancer and the fact that St. Jude will treat children regardless of their ability to pay. Come race day, thoughts of quitting (which had surfaced in his past iron-distance races) never even entered his mind because he felt that he had an obligation to his donors.

Fast-forward 4 more years, and Clif decided that doing Ironman Arizona was a good idea, and raising funds for St. Jude again was a given. This time, Clif raised a whopping $3400, qualifying him for an additional donation of $750 from Janus, so a grand total of $4150 went to St. Jude. In a tough economy, Clif still found the energy and drive to ask people to donate money…and they did. To quote Clif, “The kids of St. Jude are racing their own Ironman, only theirs is a fight for their lives. Their struggle makes any suffering I’m going through on race day insignificant.” So to Clif, and all of you out there whose passion for racing is fueled by a desire to help others, you are amazing!