Hope On Wheels
Boca Raton’s Joshua Ladle Cycles For Friends With Hodgkin’s And To Find A Cure
Joshua Ladle has completed two Ironman triathlons and a nine-mile ocean swim, so he knows a thing or two about pushing through pain.
But watching a close friend die of Hodgkin’s lymphoma – and seeing another undergo treatment and a grueling recovery for the same cancer – changed the Boca Raton resident’s perspective on endurance.
“I always knew when my races would be over, but my friends didn’t know when their fight with cancer would end,” he says. “Not all ‘endurance’ events have a finish line.”
A father of four and founder of a local real-estate investment management firm, Ladle will honor his friends in late March by cycling 575 miles from the Florida-Georgia border to Key West to raise money for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS), Palm Beach-Treasure Coast Chapter.
His goal is to finish in 60 hours and raise $100,000 for LLS, a nonprofit that funds blood cancer research and provides support services to patients.
Ladle, 41, is looking for sponsors and people to ride with him. Between his family and his business, he doesn’t have much time to train.
“On Saturdays, I do a longer ride, but I’m not going to get anywhere near to doing the entire thing before the ride, so it is going to be brutally painful,” he says.
However, he’s motivated by the fortitude and courage he saw in his two friends. Duben Wilde was 33 years old, a husband and a father of two when he died of Hodgkin’s in 2012.
“He was the first time I experienced someone close to me having cancer,” Ladle says. “With Duben, someone my age, it was quite shocking. He’s a fighter. How does this happen?”
Five years later, his friend Ian Patton was also diagnosed with Hodgkin’s. Fortunately, he’s now in remission and plans to join Ladle for part of the bike ride.
“While I was going through chemo, anytime I felt up for it, Josh would interrupt his day to take me to get lunch or bring lunch to the house,” says Patton. “This was a tremendous act of kindness.”
Ladle’s ride will be his toughest endurance challenge yet. Yet, he’s just grateful he has that choice.
“I choose to participate in my endurance events,” he says. “My friends didn’t choose to endure cancer.” O
For more information, call 888-557-7177 or visit lls.org/pb.