Ryan Sheckler

I am a skateboarder, and to stay fit for skating I have to stay away from a lot of things. I go to parties and that's fun for me, but between skating and lifting and everything, I know what I have to do the next day, so I'm very conscious about my schedule and keeping it.

This is something I've always wanted to do- to skate through a part of New York City that thousands of people ride through every week, feeling the energy of one of the original stomping grounds of street skating.

The importance of heart health became very real for me when my father died of heart disease seven years ago. Having experienced the loss first hand, I am inspired to do everything I can to break the cycle and prevent families from losing loved ones to this preventable disease.

My grandmother spent her whole life working as a maid, a cook and a babysitter, barely scraping by, but still working hard to give my mother, her only child, a chance in life, so that my mother could give my brother and me an even better one.