WHEN YOU MEET 12-year-old Kati Fisher, you discover a studious seventh-grader who loves school and maintains a 4.0 grade point average. It's an amazing accomplishment for someone who has been fighting leukemia for two years, who has undergone more than 100 weeks of chemotherapy, 13 spinal taps, four bone marrow aspirations and radiation treatment.
Along the way, she got some help from Team in Training, a sports endurance training program that raises money for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Her family learned about Team in Training when the program's Annapolis team asked Kati to be one of its honorees - patients for whom the team runs and raises money.
In appreciation, her father, Rick Fisher, who recently opened a store for runners in Old Severna Park, became a Team in Training mentor.
As a mentor, he supports the program's runners, walkers and cyclists on and off the track. He is also a runner in training and, with his daughters, often spends Saturday mornings cheering on the team while members work out on the B&A; Trail.
Fisher, a single parent whose other daughter is 10-year-old Sara, manages his schedule around his daughters. On school days, he closes his store, the Chesapeake Running Company, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. and picks up the girls. Back at the store, they do homework while their dad runs his business. The family lives in Glen Burnie, and Kati attends Corkran Middle School.
Fisher was a partner in an Annapolis jewelry store. When Kati was diagnosed, he sold his partnership to be by her side.
"Among the holding of hands and the tears, you thirst for information," he says. That's when Fisher was introduced to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and Team in Training.
"They're a bunch of compassionate, dedicated people working to cure a disease that only affects 1 percent of the world's population," he says.
The society helps patients and their families by providing emotional support, educational material, after-therapy seminars and financial aid. The largest monetary support goes to the development of new treatments.
Team in Training campaign director Jessica Suriano said the mission of the society, which has 60 chapters nationwide, including one in Towson, is to cure patients like Kati of cancers of the blood - leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin's disease and myeloma - and to improve their quality of life and that of their families.
"The society wants to be a patient's first connection, their support group, their patient aid program," Suriano says.
Since its inception in 1988, Team in Training has raised more than $350 million in support of the society. "It's the world's largest, most successful sports endurance training program," Suriano says.
In exchange for raising money for the society, runners, walkers, cyclists and triathletes benefit from months of training by experienced coaches to prepare for events like marathons and 100-mile bike rides.
The training program, attracting hundreds of participants each year, is open to participants of all fitness levels. "The experience is very empowering, very life-enriching," Suriano says. "While improving their own life, they've played a significant role in the fight against cancer."
Maryland Team in Training squads train in Baltimore, Frederick and Harford counties, on the Eastern Shore, in Southern Maryland and in Annapolis. Training for the fall season begins June 15 with a breakfast at the Hard Rock Cafe in Baltimore. Teams are entered in the Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon in Virginia Beach in September and the Athens-to-Atlanta In-line Skate, the Sea Gull Century Ride in Salisbury, the Baltimore Marathon, and Team Relay and the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, all in October.
Kati once told her father that meeting the Team in Training members has made battling her disease more bearable. And she says, "You know, Dad, I'm going to beat cancer."
For society and Team in Training information, call 410- 825-2500 or visit teamintraining.org.