The lunch was set to be a celebration of the NYC charities who had collectively reached the (insane!) 50 million mark fundraising through running, triathlons, etc. It was a huge milestone, and as I am involved in many NYC running-related charities, not only I got to go, but I knew most of the people there! And Chris McCormack was the featured speaker…!
As soon as I got to the Harvard Club it was hugs flying everywhere. I spotted old friends and made new ones. I even let Dev Manager from Bike New York convince me to try for a class… Ugh, you know that won’t end well.

There were a few speeches, including The Running God, Mary Wittenberg and then we got to hear from Chris, or Macca, as people call him… I have to admit, I don’t know much about Ironman stuff. The event scares me, it looks totally insane to me. The few times I’ve watched the Championships at Kona, I cried my eyes out and also thought they were all mental. It just seems so brutal. But.. I was also the one who, 4 years ago, would swear I’d never do a marathon!
Chris and his Wheaties box, both the Australian and the Argentinian have no clue what the point of that is…
Chris was amazing to listen to (and who doesn’t love an accent??). He talked about how he watched the Ironman competition when he was 7 years old and said “I am going to do that” to his brothers’ amusement. What won’t we do to prove our siblings wrong, right?


He talked about how his mom’s disease drove him to fundraising and how it’s all become way bigger than him. He also said it was so rewarding to win the World Championships last year when he’s such an “old” guy (at 39), with so many people discounting his drive and so much young talent in the field gunning for his back! He’s now targetting the Australian Olympic Team and then… when he’s done… the NYC Marathon!!!
Of course you can’t say no to Mary. Not when she is in the room. Well, she also was sitting in his table. And she actually suggested he’d do the marathon in her speech… Like he could resist!!! He even said how he always thought that if he’d ever do a marathon it’d be NYC. Smart Guy.
After the talk, and dessert, we got signed books and got to chat with him a bit. Sweet guy too, even if he’s a World Ironman Champion. And funny.

Chris McCormack & the Appreciation Lunch