By Katie Wagner, Staff Writer
Ronni Arno Blaisdell first heard the stories of women who simultaneously struggled with cancer and trained for a triathlon at the 2004 New York Metro Danskin Triathlon in Sandy Hook.
”I remember one woman just telling the story about how she found out she had cancer, went though chemotherapy, and decided to train for a triathlon, because she gained a lot of weight,” Ms. Arno Blaisdell said. “After she lost over 100 pounds from training, she really felt like she was capable of doing anything.
”I knew what it took to train for a triathlon without having cancer. To know these women did it with all the things they had gone through was so inspiring,” she said. “I love when people don’t think they can accomplish something and they accomplish it.”
Four years later, Ms. Arno Blaisdell is helping more cancer survivors do just that as the executive director of Team Survivor Tri-State. She founded the affiliate of Team Survivor, the nonprofit organization for female cancer survivors, with her own money in August 2005 after learning about the group at the Danskin triathlon. As leader of the organization that provides free exercise, health education, and support programs for women that have or had cancer, she has inspired women with a variety of physical fitness backgrounds to adopt healthier lifestyles and in many instances to become triathletes.
Six Team Survivor members’ letters nominating Ms. Arno Blaisdell as The Packet’s 2008 Outstanding Woman are proof of this.
The spinning classes she teaches; the triathlon training camp, cooking classes and health seminars she organizes; the training advice, friendship, cheerfulness, generosity, compassion, motivation and inspiration are just a few of the reasons these cancer survivors said Ms. Arno Blaisdell deserved the award.
What members of the team may not know is that Ms. Arno Blaisdell spends even more time in her West Windsor office organizing and planning events and activities for the team and e-mailing all 250 of her members than she does cheering them on during their workouts and races.
And for Ms. Arno Blaisdell, helping the 250 women isn’t enough.
”I still feel like we should have 200 more members,” she said. “There’s so many cancer survivors in this area and my goal is to let everybody know that we’re here.”
In addition to helping more cancer survivors in the region, she feels called to help survivors throughout the country. Ms. Arno Blaisdell demonstrated this about a week ago when she accepted the position of director of National Association of Team Survivor. Under this role, she will have opportunities to help members of all 23 Team Survivor affiliates.
”I have no complaints in life at all. I’m so lucky I never had cancer,” she said. “The only thing we can do is help people who have to deal with it, help them get through their treatment. I feel like I have an obligation to help improve the quality of their lives.”
While members of Team Survivor have said Ms. Arno Blaisdell deserves all the credit for the improvements they’ve made in their lives, she claims they could have achieved their accomplishments without her.
”Really these women are absolutely amazing. They go to chemotherapy, receive monthly scans, work full-time jobs and care for their children,” she said. “That they still get themselves to a weekly spinning class is huge.”
In addition to earning The Packet’s 2008 Outstanding Woman Award, Ms. Arno Blaisdell has been selected as the overall winner of all of Packet Publication’s 2008 Outstanding Woman contests.
Ms. Arno Blaisdell sees winning the award as another opportunity to give and will be handing off her grand prize, a “tranquil” spa treatment from Metropolis Spa Salon in Princeton, to one of her Team Survivor members.
Ms. Arno Blaisdell resides in Washington Crossing, Pa., with her husband Josh Blaisdell and daughters eight-year-old Hallie and five-year-old Morgan MacDougal.
