All In for my 18th PMC!

First Training Ride of 2021!

It's spring - FINALLY! - and as I have done for the last 18 springs, I am training for the Pan-Mass Challenge. Even just typing "18" makes me feel old! This August will mark my 18th time riding my bike across Massachusetts to raise money to fight cancer. Some years it was on my old hybrid (slow and exhausting!), other years included an extra day to start at the MA/NY border (long and exhausting), and for the last 11 rides, they were alongside my friends on our Team, Kinetic Karma (fun and fun!).

Last year's ride was different - very different - but a few teammates and I "reimagined" our ride to replicate the traditional PMC ride that we love as best we could. For the 2021 ride, the PMC won't be completely back to normal, but there WILL be a ride, and I WILL be riding in it! It will basically be a mix of the traditional PMC and our reimagined PMC (with lots of health and safety protocols to protect us):

• An organized ride with thousands of other riders;
• Volunteers filling our water bottles and bellies;
• People cheering us on along the entire route;
• Beer!;
• An overnight stay at our team captain Dave's house;
• Watching the sun rise over the Cape Cod Canal; and
• A "champagne" toast in the dunes of Provincetown.

The aspect of the PMC that NEVER changes is the commitment to the fight against cancer. The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is hard a work putting last year's $50 million fundraising total in this fight - over $10 million for pediatric oncology, $3 million for adult oncology, $1.6 million for cancer biology research, and much more. Read the 2020 PMC Progress Report for more details on the impact that the funds raised through the PMC (and donated by people like you!) are having in the fight against cancer.

2020's $50 million donation increased the total amount of funds raised by PMC riders to an astonishing $767 million. I have no doubt that many of the cancer innovations and increases in survival rates that we have seen over the last 41 years, and even in the last 18 years of me riding, are due in part to the monumental charitable movement that is the Pan-Mass Challenge. I am humbled and honored to be a part of this event, and to be a part of making cancer HISTORY.

As I embark on the 2021 PMC, I am asking you to jump on my handlebars and join me in supporting the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute to continue and expand their life-saving work. We all have our personal connections to cancer - a family member, friend, neighbor, or colleague - I ride for them all, in honor of their fight or in memory of their spirit. Please make a cancer-fighting donation today, and help us make cancer HISTORY. Thank you!