Why I Ride
N.A.M , R.S.M Team oN.A.Mission "Making Cancer Our Bitch"
Cancer Sucks.. plain and simple. This awful disease affects EVERYONE. For me it happened to be my Mom. She was diagnosed with an advance stage of Cervical Cancer on my sisters 15th birthday. She had a courageous 18 month battle with it and lost her battle in August 2010 days before i started my sophomore year of high school. She died far to early at the age of 54.
Growing up in Rochester, Ma our whole family grew up watching the race every summer. At a young age it really didn't make sense to us why every year all these people come biking pass our house. It all would eventually make sense for me and my sister though. About a year after our Mom's passing my sister and Dad decided to embark on the epic ride for the 2012 race. Both started there training begingin of the 2012 year. We all had a passion of riding since we were little. Our Dad would always take us riding around town as soon as we were able to loose the training wheels.
During one of his Training rides our Dad had a massive heart attack and died. We were both devastated from the loss of both our parents. Even with the losses we've had my sister knew our parents would still want her to ride for the cause that her and dad have been working so hard at. Sarah still decided to ride and got a surprising volunteer from our wonderful cousin who couldn't let her ride it alone.
The Two girls, Sarah Marchisio (my sister), and Beth Peucker (my cousin), thus came up with a Team Name, Girls oN.A.Mission having the "N.A.M" uppercased in honor of our Mothers Initials.
After watching the two girls ride by the house I knew I had to ride in the following years race. With A lot of support from a bunch of our close friends the following year Girls oN.A.Mission became Team oN.A.Mission, a team made up of 4 high schoolers, 7 college students and 1 athletic director we all decide to MAKE CANCER OUR BITCH. We were able to accomplish to raise over $52,000 dollars as a team that all directly went to the amazing Dana Farber, the organization that gave my Mom the extra 9-12 months pass her expectancy.
We Ride for all of our loved ones who have been affected by Cancer and for anyone else who has been affected by Cancer. We can make a difference and continue to defeat the disease and continue to make Cancer our bitch.
Nancy A. Marchisio & Richard S. Marchisio Jr. , Mom&Dad <3
