Eliza Adams and the Pan Mass Challenge

Late July for Eliza was a time when her training peaked prior to a highlight of the year, the Pan Mass Challenge, a 200-mile, two-day, bike ride across Massachusetts. For me, her husband, that meant being part of a group that, each in turn, would accompany her on ever-longer training rides. She and I would climb hills and cycle past trees and fields and ponds and then – I have no idea. I would become so tired that all I could see would be the blur of her rear bike wheel spinning ahead. Notwithstanding my groans, I knew, and I believe the others did as well, that there was fun in this blurrage and even something a bit magical. We were riding with a person who was becoming increasingly strong despite being afflicted by an aggressive, fatal disease. And I think a bit of this is why Eliza loved being part of the PMC. She knew others on the ride had metastatic cancer too and she felt honored to be part of such a brave, resilient, group. They were willing to push back, if not against death than against incapacity. Even as her condition deteriorated this spring, I know Eliza hoped to find the strength to be part of this year’s ride.  At the finish line last year, her sister Jody asked me if I would join the family team for 2017. That seemed crazy then and crazier still when Jody asked again in late April, after Eliza’s death. At the time, I could barely walk and hadn’t gone more than seven city blocks for months. But perhaps in the same way that in the past I helped Eliza, I felt this time around she has been helping me. The Economist has been beyond patient and I have taken advantage of the space it provided to train, first by walking then running then riding. The PMC is not the Himalayas; normal people manage to do it. My prospects remain far-fetched, but no longer unthinkable. On July 24th I was permitted to be a late registrant for the August 5th start. I signed up to fill the empty slot on Jody’ team that, of course, cannot be really filed. I think Eliza would consider this to be crazy and funny and good. By signing up, of course, I have become a component of the PMC’s overt goal, raising money for Dana Farber’s cancer research. It would be difficult to find a cause more important to Eliza – since her disease was diagnosed as metastatic five years ago, she had devoted herself to helping other women with similar problems and to the research accompanying drug trials. If you would like to contribute, there are various links enabling you to do so. No contribution will do what I would really like – produce cures for someone who can no longer use them. But perhaps the funds will help those who are alive and ill and, in all sorts of mysterious and perhaps magical ways, the ride may support others as well.