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THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTINUING SUPPORT !
My 2009 Ride Report <click to open>
This Year We Are at $7,785 as of August 11, 2010.
2010 Ride Report: 25 years as a Heavy Hitter riding the PMC from Sturbridge to Provincetown! Thanks for the support that made it possible.
With the good fortune of staying at my friend Paul's home in Sturbridge, I avoid getting up at 2:30 to make it to the start. But the ride itself is the reward. I move a lot of mass through a lot of space from March to August to make it possible for me to finish. The folks who get up to cheer and thank us along the way are the reward. Where else can you do something you like to do with great mediocrity and have people you don't know cheer? The volunteers feeding and fixing and healing and watering us and directing traffic are the reward. They will not let us be hindered in any way towards the goal. And, oh yeah, I finished again. I find myself drawn to ask the rookie riders what they're thinking and find most have already been sucked in for next year. I stop and take pictures so that I can look back on the weekend when the legs and shoulders and butt are not commanding my attention. I am stunned at the elaborate planning and effort that goes into Cherry St in Wrentham with Jeannie and the Over The Hill Cheerleaders in new costumes every year, this year as pirates and in Truro as cheerleaders. More and more folks are permanent fixtures along the route. Trumpets, bagpipes, accordians, rock bands, drums.
On my path this year, I carried pictures of Linda, Heidi and Reed. Linda loved and lived for her house on the Cape but was taken too soon. Heidi was a dear soul who thought ill of no one. Reed was cyclist who would have loved to have ridden over the Bourne Bridge himself. All three diagnosed and died of cancer this year.
The Mass Maritime Academy, hosting us for the 25th time over Saturday, was a welcome sight. Schedule a massage, shower, unpack, get some food and drink, nap, more liquids, team photos, catching up with friends, music and in bed by 9. Stage 2 starts at 4AM.
As with Saturday, the weather was outstanding. Billy says it never rains on the PMC but he is willfully forgetting 1988. Another gorgeous sunrise as well. I am continually amazed that the State closes off one lane of the Bourne Bridge for us to use Sunday morning. And the ride along the canal is very calming that early. Lots of folks whiz by me. There is really just one hill that gets in the way and that is the climb to the 6A service road in Sandwich. It is the only place I use my granny gear. The rest is a scenic tour of the Cape with its winding lanes and roling hills. All the waterstops do an exceptional job but the one at Nickerson goes just a bit further. Half way on Sunday, they decorate the park's parking lot and have lots of extras like popcicles. It seems nobody wants to leave. Between there and Wellfleet we spend lots of time on the rail trails and along the shoreline. The Wellfleet waterstop is great but it is perched at the top of a steep hill just to test our mettle. From there it is off the see the OverTheHillCheerleaders on Castle Rd in Truro before getting on Rt 6 for the push home to the Provincetown Inn. After a military type shower in a tent, I join Tom Erickson and his wife for a civilized lunch and head to the fast ferry home. This year, my buddy, Bob, was gracious enough to give me a ride to Sturbridge to pick up my car.
Several days later, with my usual post ride cold, I look back with a sense of accomplishment. The discomfort is fading into my distant memeory. You and I will reach $8000 this year. And the whole ride was around $23 million as I write this. And all of our hard earned donations go 100% to the Dana Farber. Thank you again.
Why do I do this and why should you help? The Jimmy Fund has provided resources over the past decades to treat childhood cancers and to investigate different avenues in search of cures.Each avenue of research competes for grants from the government and private sources. These sources naturally tend to fund the most promising avenues. Unfortunately for the researchers, the catch-22 is that significant resources are necessary to develop the body of evidence that would get any area of work to the level of being promising and fundable. The Jimmy Fund provides that seed funding for work in childhood cancer as well as the funding for the humane clinical treatment of kids cursed with cancer. Your contribution provides hope for those afflicted and for those working to solve for the cure. 100% of all contributions went to the Dana Farber last year. Click on my donation link above or visit www.pmc.org . My ID is JK0013.
How have I been affected by cancer? Back in 1959 my father was operated on for his first cancer, of the throat. Surgery, radiation and chemotherapy was rather primitive compared to today, but those techniques and others through 2004 saved him to live a full 89 years, dying of something unrelated. We need to work to provide the miracle endings for so many more folks.
What is the Pan Mass Challenge? The Pan Mass Challenge is the most successful and oldest continuous charity bicycling in the country. In 1980, a fellow by the name of Billy Starr, whose family was ravaged by cancer, had the inspiration to try to make a difference. What started with a couple dozen enthusiasts riding from Springfield in the general direction of Provincetown has developed into 7000+ folks riding, volunteering and planning in the 21st century. On the first weekend each August the participants descend on Sturbridge and Wellesley MA to celebrate their year of fund-raising for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute by riding a bicycle for up to 192 miles. Crazy, no? Yes, but there is much gained in the shared experience.
Riding this event are politician, celebrities, professional athletes and citizens all sharing the effort, financial and physical. We've been joined by such as Sen. Kerry and Greg Lemond. But the inspirational participants are such as the rider who lost a leg at a young age and a lung a bit later in life, both to cancer, who climbs on his bike and hurtles toward Provinceton at a phenomenal pace, one that I have never been able to attain. Or such as the professional football player, ex-Patriot, Joe Andruzzi, who recently endured chemotherapy but determinedably ground out his first ride this year in 12 hours, popping his kneecap back in after injuring it in a climb. There are young men and women riding who were treated in their childhook for cancer at DFCI that are 'living proof' that progress is being made.
The PMC as an organization is approaching the $300,000,000.00 mark for contributions over the life of the event. Thirty years in 2009, an average of about $10,000,000.00/year. It is remarkably efficient. In the 80's the event had been able to contribute over 90% to the DCFI. It has progressed to delivering 100% of every penny you contribute to the Dana Farber where it can do the most good.
I get more from this than I give. I ask people to give money for a cause that I know they would give to anyway. It drives me to be compulsive about getting out to train in order to survive it. It gives me a new group of friends to see each year. It gives me a sense that I've helped in a small way and that I am part of something bigger. I feel remorse in not having done more. I've always given to cancer charities because of the successes in my family, not the failures. I hope some of this description makes you feel more a part of the effort. Thanks again.
HERE is HOW to DONATE:
- Option one is to write a check to "PMC The Jimmy Fund" and get it to me in person or send me email and I will get you my US postal address.
- The second option is to use the website, http://www.pmc.org/eGifts ( JK0013 ) You use a credit card there along with my rider code JK0013. Using the website is easy and secure and does not reduce the value of your contribution.
