Beat Cancer with a Paddle Race
 

2nd Annual Sweetwater Paddle for the Cure will be held in Tampa on April 24th. There will be a 5 mile race as well as a fun 2 mile family race. All proceeds will go to the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation. More info and registration is at www.beatcancerwithapaddle.org. There will be a free YOLO board demo at the event.

This is a great event. Brought about by one of the guys I work with who has multiple myeloma. They raised around 38K last year (corporate sponsors mostly). It was solely a kayak event last year, but this year they are adding SUP. Supposedly 168 paddlers showed up last year. Mainly a fun/charity event. For those of you who've never heard of multiple myeloma, it's a cancer of one of the blood cells, the plasma cell, which is responsible for producing anti-bodies in the normal individual. The disease is treatable, but not curable, with the median survival rate for all stages being 50 months. Patients go into many remissions followed by relapses and the treatment/remission/relapse cycle can be very devastating. There are about 15K new cases per year, with approx. 11K deaths per year.

Save the date. It would be great to see the Hillsborough River filled with SUP boards.