As many of you know, I rode in Pelotonia, a cancer fundraising bike ride, on August 9-10. I had originally signed up to ride 100 miles but after some prodding (nagging) from my husband I decided to do the longest ride, 180 miles over 2 days. It was an amazing experience...more than 7,000 cyclists, hundreds of volunteers including paramedics, physical therapists, police officers and thousands of supporters...all focused on our One Goal ==> End Cancer.
Of course there were people lining the streets in downtown Columbus at the start but there were people cheering us on and encouraging us throughout the route. There were many, many people throughout the ride holding signs, shouting encouragement and always saying, "Thank you for riding." ...even in some pretty remote locations. The volunteers always thanked us and of course we thanked them back since they had the food :) and the police officers manning the intersections always thanked us, too.
One small town east of here, Granville, had hundreds (thousands?) of people turn out, lining some sections of the course 2-3 people deep. It came when we were 60 miles in, starting to feel tired yet knowing the worst was still ahead of us. What an adrenaline boost that was! I started tearing up as I rode into the town seeing the support and was a boo-hooing mess as I passed through.
It was a physical manifestation of an image I held on to during some really dark nights in the hospital....all my family and friends surrounding me and cheering me on....that's what I saw and felt as I rode through Granville and many other times during the ride. Here are a few good pictures of the scene in Granville.
Most of the day Saturday I rode with my husband Al and Tammy, my oncologist's nurse practitioner. Although Tammy was riding really strong and I was having some hip and foot issues so she dropped us, well dropped me, like a used Kleenex. But we would meet up at the rest stops and take off together.
Crossing the 100-mile finish line alongside Alan and Tammy is a feeling I will never forget. Those two are the people most responsible for getting me to the mental, emotional and physical condition to successfully complete that ride. My training and toughness may have been what got me to the finish line, those two got me to the starting line.
After we got off our bikes, we all exchanged congratulatory hugs and I just broke down sobbing on Tammy's shoulder. I spent a lot of time on the road thinking about these last 18 months...not so much the bad stuff, just a little bit of that. But I thought so much about the love and support that had gotten me to that finish line and I was just overwhelmed by it all.
Alan and Tammy weren't riding the second day so we ate dinner, they left, I got a massage and some first aid for my foot, and went to sleep in my dorm room. My roommate was a lovely young lady who is majoring Marketing and Finance at OSU who will be a senior this year.
On Sunday, we lined up to start at 7am on a cool foggy morning.
As you can vaguely see in the above photo, we started riding uphill pretty quickly and we continued going uphill for another 20 or so miles. Ugh!
Since Tammy and Al weren't riding Sunday, I rode with some folks I met on a training ride that I wrote about here--
Pelotonia. I was having issues with my foot and it really slowed me down on any sort of hill, of which there were many. So I would take off with the group but would get dropped pretty quickly. That gave me a lot of time to ride by myself. It was an interesting metaphor for how my fight went, and how it might go in the future. Sometimes, your loved ones are fighting with you, side by side but there are also times when you're fighting alone.
The other interesting contrast on the ride is that my primary riding partner on Sunday was Chris Scarcello, Director of Research Operations at The James, the cancer hospital where I had my treatment. She is the sister of Michael Caligiuri, MD, the CEO of The James. Dr. Caligiuri rode with us for extended periods of time. It was nice to see him thank every rider he passed. Chris' two daughters, Liz and Gina, and friend Julie also rode in the group. So, on Saturday, I rode with the people personally responsible for my recovery and on Sunday, I rode with some of the people corporately responsible for my recovery.
I crossed the finish line with their group at about 2PM. Waiting at the finish line were Al, Claire, my niece Samantha, brother in law David, nephew Max, Tammy, and a fellow with whom I work, Greg, and his family. It was such a feeling of love and support and I was grateful that they were there.
On Monday, as I was still basking in the post-Pelotonia glow, I had to grab a late lunch in the 30-minute window between meetings after our cafeteria had closed. As I ate my lunch at a sidewalk table near my building, a 20-ish year old man approached me with a story about needing money to get out of a parking garage because he lost his ticket. I sensed it was a scam but told him I'd give him money if he told me his story and he listened to mine.
He told me he's a recovering heroin addict
he wants to attend OSU
he had a dope sick, jail house encounter with God that powers his recovery
that he's scared he will relapse
that it hurts to get shot.
I showed him a picture of me last year
told him about my transplant
shared the grim prognosis and relapse statistics for my disease even with the transplant
told him there was nothing I could do to control my relapse, that it was a roll of the dice with the odds set by the biology of my plasma cells.
I told him that over the weekend more than 7,000 people rode between 25 and 180 miles and thousands of others volunteered to try to change those odds for me and for millions like me.
I asked him that, when he's faced with a choice of whether or not to use again, to think about the gift of life God had given him and to make a choice that honored that gift...because there's millions who don't have a choice as to whether we relapse but would do anything to have one.
I handed him $35, gave him my phone number and told him to call me if he needed anything, and that I'd pray for him.
It may not have helped him, but as those encounters usually do, it really helped me.
I will ride in every Pelotonia for as long as I'm able. Yes, it feels great to raise money for cancer research and to complete a challenging physical activity. But what Pelotonia is for me, as I ride through the streets filled with supporters cheering me on, is a physical manifestation of the love and support I felt during my illness, treatment and recovery that carries over once I get off of the bike.
I'd ride a lot longer than 180 miles to be able to feel that every year.
