This year I will join Team Fitz for my third Pan Mass Challenge. My first year I fell and cut my knee...before the race began, rode more miles in the first two HOURS than I had in my entire life and promised myself I would never let my friends convince me to do the PMC again. Last year, I fractured my elbow on my first training ride and spent the summer in a sling. Doing PMC the last two years has taught me a couple things: I'm not a very good bike rider and the other riders and members of Team Fitz are the best people around. This team's loyalty, tenacity and compassion cannot be matched. Riding alongside my best friends, to raise money to fight the disease that stole their loved ones from them too soon, was one of the most meaningful things I have ever done, and I can't wait to do it again.

I joined Team Fitz last year because time and time again throughout my life I have seen the devastating effects cancer has on family and close friends. It’s hard to believe that I never got the opportunity to meet Big Kev, because his family has become such a large part of my life. The Fitzgeralds have welcomed me with open arms to prom photo shoots, Sunday dinners, trips down the Cape and holidays. They even introduced me to their cousin, and now he’s my boyfriend! Time spent with the Fitzgeralds is almost always accompanied by the Rusks. I first met Big Leo when Emily and I became friends at Boston Arts Academy. I vividly remember the first time he gave me a ride home and drove the wrong way down Boylston Street in Jamaica Plain. I tried to explain from the back seat that it was a one-way but he insisted it shouldn’t be and went down it anyway. Since that day, Big Leo was always willing to offer me a ride home or share an outrageous story.

I am riding in the PMC this year because every cent goes towards finding a cure. I am riding because cancer does not discriminate and continues to take people I love too soon. I am riding alongside my best friends, so that others might get to spend a little more time with their own fathers. Please consider donating to this cause!