Dear Friend,

On 25th October 2000 Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) took my father Guglielmo away from this world.

ALS is a disease that breaks down tissues in the nervous system (a neurodegenerative disease) of unknown cause that affects the nerves responsible for movement thus muscles. It is also known as motor neuron disease and Lou Gehrig's disease. It has no cure and the average expected life is around 4 years.

Guglielmo faced this tremendous disease without never loosing his smile, deep love for life and always putting his family first.
His way of fighting ALS gave to all the people that had a chance to be around him a lesson that we will never forget.

He did it his way and although he was really a bad singer (believe me it wasn’t the tracheotomy he just couldn’t sing) until the very last he kept singing his favorite song My Way by Frank Sinatra:

“I’ve lived a life that’s full.
I’ve travelled each and every highway;
And more, much more than this,
I did it my way”

Now I started running marathons in 2001 in order to remind me that even putting a foot in front of the other is a gift given to us. When I run I feel my father at my side motivating me and reminding to never quite.
I have run 15th marathon so far and now I have been qualified for The Boston Marathon.
My very ambitious aim is to run the 42,195 Km below 3 hours.

Boston, MGH and Merit Cudkowicz’s team mean a lot to me both for their daily tremendous effort to find a cure to SLA and for the fact they had accepted my father in a research trial.

This is the reason I would appreciate your help in supporting Merit Cudkowicz ALS research.

Keep running against the wind

Thanks

Annamaria, Graziella, Paolo and Marco

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