Along with 6,800 riders, I completed the Pan-Mass Challenge this past weekend. On Saturday we rode 109 miles from Sturbridge to Bourne and Sunday we rode 77 miles from Bourne to Provincetown. I definitely caught the bug, and am looking forward to PMC 2025.

Quick Fundraising Summary – goal $25,000, raised $17,000 to date. My team has raised close to $1,000,000 and the PMC will raise close to $75,000,000 this year. 100% of which goes to cancer treatment and research at Dana-Farber.

Passing along my impressions of PMC weekend.

First, the riders and volunteers (about 10,000 in total) are a very special group of people, they are generally either cancer survivors or have lost family and friends to cancer. This event is not really about a bike ride, of course it is a fund-raising event, but it is also a gathering of support, hope, friendship and love that helps the participants heal from and deal with the tragedy of cancer. It is a very special club, and not a club that anyone wants to be a member of. Now I know why people participate in this event year after year. After all the hard work of fund-raising during the year, they need this event to come together as a group, to celebrate the victories and share in the grief of lost family and friends. I was humbled and honored to ride with this team.

Second, the amazing people cheering the riders all along the route, starting at 5:30 in the morning. To have thousands of people all along the route, clapping, ringing cowbells and yelling “thank you and thank you for riding or thanks for doing this” was such a moving and motivating experience. You could tell that a lot of these folks had skin in the game and that they needed to out there to express their appreciation.

Sunday ended with about a thousand PMC riders on a ferry from Provincetown to Boston, dubbed the “party ferry” as the band rocked the crowd, the drinks flowed and everyone sang and danced. It was an emotional release after a long and challenging weekend. The skies were gray for most of the ferry ride, but the spectacle of seeing a whale breach the water and a rainbow or two provided a reminder that I was with a very special group of people participating in a very special event.

Lastly, I want to point out something very special about the Pan Mass Challenge and their fundraising efforts. The fundraising for Dana-Farber, which will exceed $75 million this year, and $1 billion since inception, is primarily done with a team of around 5,000 volunteers. PMC has a paid professional staff of just 13 people. It’s the volunteers that make this thing work.

Please consider a donation to Dana-Farber and the PMC, where 100% of your donation is passed through directly to the DFCI. Thank you again and stay well.