Riding Solo
So for most of Saturday’s Pan Mass Challenge bike ride last year, it felt as though all 5,454 riders passed me at some point during the nearly 7 hours on the road. It’s always a great feeling when a wave of cyclists blows by you like an 18-wheeler on I-95. But you battle through, gobbling three peanut butter Clif bars for extra energy, taking short breaks on rest stops, and somehow, with all of your body telling you to stop, you finish. My bike crossed the line in Bourne, Massachusetts among one of the first 2,500. “So basically what you’re saying Dad, is you lost” Jack said later. I suppose he’s right, but thankfully we like to think of this ride not as a race, but as a charity. I rode with different people that day during the event that raises money for cancer research – most imaginary, but some real. Mary Ellen from York Maine, a 72-year-old, was riding in her 19th Pan Mass Challenge. Cancer had never affected her family until 1998 when she felt her first lump. “It was like I was putting a downpayment on my medical care,” she quipped as we approached a flat stretch of the ride. “I go at my own pace, not as fast as I did back in my 60s.” Mary was easy to spot in the sea of bicycles and blue jerseys. She had an orange bike, purple and yellow streamers dangling from her helmet and hair the color of a perfect cloud on a sunny day. Mary’s breast cancer treatment worked, thanks to Dana Farber. Six years after Mary’s first infusion, her sister was diagnosed with a more aggressive tumor, found in stage III, and despite a great fight ultimately lost her life in 2006. Mary says she feels her sister grab hold of the pedals on heartbreak hill every year. “Maybe it’s my imagination, but I feel something.” Money raised for Cancer research is important given that many who get cancer may not be able to access one of the best centers, but the research is used to improve treatment and protocols that make their way to local oncologists. I’ll be out riding again this weekend – if you’re there, give a holler, I’ll be the one with the wobbly bike going about 7 miles an hour.