On Tuesday night, we were part of a Zoom call with almost 50 other people in the running community to be part of the Run with Rivs initiative kicking off on Saturday, Aug. 1.

Jacob Puzey provided an update on Tommy Rivers Puzey’s battle with Primary Pulmonary NK T-Cell Lymphoma (a very rare and aggressive form of Lymphoma) on Tuesday and said his brother remains sedated. His lungs and oxygen levels have been improving. The chemo that he is undergoing is aggressive but the medical team believes that he can withstand it.

Team Run Flagstaff’s Vince Sherry, NAU head coach Mike Smith and NAZ Elite head coach Ben Rosario are part of a team organizing a week-long virtual challenge for Tommy starting on Saturday, Aug. 1.

The virtual challenge concept is another way of supporting Tommy’s GoFundMe page, which has already raised more than $386K.

This is another opportunity to dig deeper and go beyond just donating because it’s going to be a long road back. The goal of this is also to lift Tommy’s family up in a similar fashion to how he’s been able to impact so many people. Running and Instagram became an opportunity and platform for him to share his love and talent to the world through all of the endurance challenges that he’s tackled. Now, they want to hear stories of our best attempts at endurance feats to try and emulate Tommy.

The Instagram account @RunWithRivs has been set up so that you can share and tag your challenge as you go about it in the eight days. Organizers hope that the Instagram page becomes a hub where lots of the stories can be aggregated and then shared so that Tommy can read how he’s inspired so many people when he awakes.

All of the funds raised will go to the Puzey family to help Tommy stay focused on his recovery efforts and support his wife and kids.

A Run With Rivs page has been set up with some background on him and his current battle.

Join the CITIUS MAG team. Let’s target $1,000 raised for Rivs by setting the goal of donating $1 for every mile that you run from Aug. 1 to Aug. 9. Donate, hold yourself accountable to that goal and if you run extra, donate more.

* Design your Challenge Entry: Run, Ride, Jog, Walk, Row Crawl … It can be as epic as a century ride or as simple as a walk around the block. It can be a single effort or a goal for each respective day. He’s a friend to so many across the globe as a cyclist, a marathoner, a mountain runner, a trail runner, a triathlete, and an ultra runner so there are many ways to follow his lead!

* Make your own donation based off a goal mileage for the week.

* Log your miles into the “results” of your activities.

* Invite a friend by sending them this link – https://runsignup.com/citiusmag-rivs

* Stay in touch with your friends, tag us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter by adding @CitiusMag and @RunWithRivs. We’ll repost it to everyone. Cover ground, breathe and share your journey.

If you can’t participate, we’d love for you to help spread the word about this. #RunWithRivs #RideWithRivs #HikeWithRivs #TriWithRivs

This is an opportunity to support Tommy, his wife, his daughters and the rest of his family.

His family is humbled and thankful for the generosity and love that has been shared by the running community thus far. Let’s keep it going.