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Rising from loss: a runner’s quest heads for new heights

Army for a cause: Kevin Maloney's 50-strong team, Run for Lisa, at the event last year (Photograph supplied)

A marathon effort for a cancer charity returns today with a new target — backed by its biggest turnout of supporters so far.

Kevin Maloney is limbering up for his eighth Bermuda Triangle Challenge with a small army of 76 people joining his team, Run for Lisa, named after his late wife, who died of cancer in 2016.

The couple, who loved visiting Bermuda, were also keen backers of the St Baldrick’s Foundation, the international charity devoted to fighting children’s cancer.

Lisa and Kevin Maloney. Mr Maloney takes part in the Bermuda Triangle Challenge in memory of his wife, who lost her battle against cancer in 2016 (Photograph supplied)

Mr Maloney said he was looking forward to it all — not just the gruelling three-race event this weekend, but the chance to raise as much cash for the cause as possible.

Mr Maloney, 60, said: “Right now, we are about at the $80,000 mark and every dollar over $84,000 will mean we have passed $800,000 since we started raising money — and it all goes to St Baldrick’s and childhood cancer research.”

Mr Maloney, with his friend Mike Almskog, who has run alongside him in every triangle challenge since 2017, has vowed to push on through a million dollars and beyond.

He said: “We have a soft target of a million, but we want to go to two, three, four million — we’re saving kids. It’s a great kick to be helping to save children.”

Mr Maloney added: “We normally exceed our fundraising expectations and I really hope to do that again this year.”

The senior vice-president with the insurance firm Allied World in New York added: “I’m going to keep doing this for as long as I can.

“If I can’t run it, I’ll walk. If I can’t walk, I’ll crawl. It means that much to me.”

Mr Maloney and Mr Almskog will lead their team into the Chubb Bermuda Triangle Challenge today.

They will step up to the BF&M 10K Run tomorrow and battle through the PwC Bermuda Half Marathon on Sunday.

The Run for Lisa 2025 page online showed the couple on the beach together in Bermuda in May 2012, less than three years before Lisa had stage 4 metastatic cancer diagnosed.

Kevin and Lisa Maloney in Bermuda (Photograph supplied)

It said: “As most of you know, Lisa and I loved Bermuda long before her diagnosis — we were already planning on doing the Bermuda triangle of races each year to raise money for kids battling cancer.”

Mr Almskog said: “I’m really just proud that the word is getting out there about this.

“Our first few years there were only a handful of us that would come down, and then we met some great people in Bermuda who have become our friends and I look forward to coming down every year.”

He added: “We’ve been extremely fortunate with the kind and generous people that have donated to the cause and to the amazing people in Bermuda, who have always made us feel so welcome.”

Mr Maloney thanked the event organisers Bermuda Racing and the Bermuda Tourism Authority for their assistance to his team, which included some discounts.

He said: “Lisa and I loved Bermuda, and Bermuda was always good to us. I will always come back to run here.”

Mr Maloney added: “I would say at least half of our team, maybe three quarters, has travelled from the US to Bermuda.

“People have been just phenomenal. They have really been trying to help all of the people involved.”

St Baldrick’s started fundraising in an Irish bar in New York on St Patrick’s Day 2000 after it was founded the year before by John Bender, now the chairman of reinsurance and risk management at Allied World, with friends Tim Kenny and Enda McDonnell.

The charity, which also operates the traditional head-shaving fundraiser in Bermuda, has handed out $354 million in research grants since 2005.

Mr Maloney’s labour of love has skipped only one year of the triangle challenge because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Fresh off last year’s race, the Long Island native told The Royal Gazette: “When you lose someone you really love, you go through grief, but at some point you have to realise that life is short.

“I thank God he sent me Lisa — there was a lot of pain with her illness but I would not have missed a second of it all.

“This keeps her memory alive as a beautiful, loving spirit.”

He added: “Cancer kicked me. I’d like to kick it back.”

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Published January 17, 2025 at 7:58 am (Updated January 17, 2025 at 11:34 am)

Rising from loss: a runner’s quest heads for new heights

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