Regional Director Finishes IRONMAN® World Championship for LLS

As the parent of a cancer survivor and a cancer survivor himself, Robert Cornett participated in the IRONMAN® World Championship in Kona, Hawaii on Oct. 8 through The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s (LLS) Team In Training program. TNT is the flagship fundraising program for LLS and the only endurance sports training program for charity that raises money for blood cancer research.

As a regional director with BenchMark Physical Therapy, Robert partnered with the company for the IRONMAN® Chattanooga in September 2015 to raise awareness for childhood cancer. As an official partner for the IRONMAN® Chattanooga races, today BenchMark Physical Therapy is proud to support Cornett to raise awareness for blood cancers with the LLS. BenchMark’s original plan was to raise $75,000 with the help of associates and patients. However, the company raised over $227,000. Through golf tournaments, smashing pies into faces, cookouts and yard sales, the company exceeded their own expectations.

Though Robert is a skin cancer survivor, blood cancer also hits close to home—Cornett is the father of a seven-year-old survivor. When his daughter Norah was a toddler, she was diagnosed with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). After a two-and-a-half year battle, Norah is now in her third year of remission and is enjoying life as a happy, healthy first grader.

Cornett wrote on the family’s CarePage blog in 2011 when Norah was initially diagnosed, “I just thought doing the IRONMAN® two years ago would be the hardest endurance race I would run. Not even close. We are ready to take on this journey. Our family has been strengthened beyond words,” he added, “Adversity has a way to doing that.”