Tomorrow morning at 5:30 I will clip my shoes into my pedals and head toward the sea. For my third and final time, I will take the Pan-Massachusetts Challenge and wheel my bike across Massachusetts to raise money for cancer research at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.
When I finish the first day’s 110 miles, I will be spent. When I get on the bike at dark the next morning, the outline of the seat will be excruciating for the first several miles until the sharp pain becomes bearable. When I approach the finish in Provincetown, the wind will try to push me backward to where I started. When I crest the last hill and approach the 190th mile, I will choke back tears. The commitment, the effort, and the adventure will overwhelm me.
As I sit in my bed just hours before the ride begins, I already know these things. After all, I’ve done this twice before. I know it will be hard. I know it will be overwhelming. Most of all, I know it will make a difference.
Tonight at the opening ceremonies, I listened to story after story about cancer survivors. Sometimes they were the people stricken with the disease; sometimes they were the people left behind. Everyone suffers, and everyone deserves a fighting chance.
I also listened to the president of Dana Farber speak about all the ways the more than $330 million donated over the lifetime of this ride has helped move the research forward. Real ways. Very specific ways. Drugs that came to market specifically because of the funding provided by this ride. Doctors who were able to explore innovative therapies because these donations kept their labs in operation.
In the crowd, I saw a man missing a leg. I saw men and women who had beaten cancer. I saw parents who had lost children. I saw fighters who didn’t know what the results of their next PET scan would show. I saw a man fighting for a friend. I saw a woman whose son had survived but his father hadn’t. Every one of them will ride with me tomorrow. Every one of them has suffered in ways I can’t begin to imagine and hope I never have to. Every one of them is stronger than me.
That’s why I ride. That’s why I can’t quit when the going gets tough.
