Padded cycling shorts, foldable tire tubes, CO2, custom fit road bike, sunscreen, headband…and more. If you like buying “gear” and “gadgets” you’ll love road biking! Not only that, but the health benefits of cycling on a regular basis include greater cardiovascular strength and strong leg muscles. Always ready to try a new sport, especially that I’m now “of a certain age”, you must know my bike riding track record is no more than what it was when I was six years old…down to the penny candy store and back. Yet, once I found out that not all people with leukemia are as fortunate as my newly-diagnosed dad, I figured…the worse that can happen is that I am humiliated on my first hill and have to jump in the sag wagon, a version of a van taxi on a mountain. The “give it a try” was instigated also by my sister, Kara. Her reasoning was that we can’t cure dad’s chronic myelogenous leukemia, but we can help find a cure or at least advance medical research. Because thankfully, he was one of the lucky ones.
CML can be treated these days with a drug called Gleevec but that’s only been made possible because of fundraising championed and organized by patient advocacy and fundraising organizations like the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. So, we decided to do a Century together around Lake Tahoe…”America’s Most Beautiful Bike Ride”. We trained for over 14 weeks to strengthen our legs, lungs and heart for this “century” ride. The bottom line is that I learned so much from the coaches support, knowledge and experience with endurance training – as well as from their unrelenting attitude that we bikers were the engine behind the research – and the thousands of other novice, intermediate and advanced bikers who decide they can make a difference by fundraising money for this ride. With the $4,500 I raised by reaching out to receptive and generous friends and donors, LLS paid for my roundtrip airline ticket to Lake Tahoe, as well as two nights hotel. The real gift is this: they also provided me with top rate bike coaching for the 14 weeks that we trained for this event. Since I live in Connecticut, our training rides consisted of riding 25-65 mile routes on early Saturday mornings from March through May. It’s really true what the coaches say “if you can bike the routes we plan for you…you’ll be prepared for Tahoe!”.
Together, my husband, Julien, my sister, Kara, and I rode the hilling, windy, hot and oxygen-light terrain with 2,000 other LLS bikers on June 6th starting from near the Embassy Suites Hotel. In total, just the three of us raised 13,000.00 for LLS – a mere drop in the bucket for research purposes, but, the collective LLS riders in Tahoe raised over $6 million! More than 75% of money raised goes to drug research and patient care for the many types of blood cancers for which there is STILL no cure. Does this interest you at all? I would recommend charity bike riding to mid-life women and am looking to establish a group women nationally – with the LLS as our coaches and supporters. Their superb organizational and coaching skills are unsurpassed and their dedication to finding a cure is contagious!
The benefits? The benefits included getting stronger legs and a stronger cardiovascular system. The biggest benefit for me was knowing with every ride that I was giving hope to a cure for the millions of patients and future-patients with blood cancers. I get a knot in my throat when I think about the stories of patients. And, I am grateful that bikers, years ago, were able to fundraise so – today, my dad can just pop a pill to manage his condition. I also have a myriad of new friends who shared an adventure with a common and elusive goal: “how not to feel old ... on a bike!“
