Friends,
It's that time of year again. The time to get the roadbike out of the furnace room and hit the roads to get ready for the 165-mile Pan Mass Challenge (PMC) ride to beat cancer!
Despite having raised over one billion dollars for cancer research in the 45 years since the PMC ride started, cancer still has a winning record. This year, cancer claimed the life of a truly fearless leader, Diane Legg (pictured above). I have been fortunate enough to know Diane and be part of Team LUNGstrong for a decade. Year in and year out, Diane was the inspirational leader who brought the 50+ person Team LUNGstrong together en route to raising over $5M for cancer research. Even when she was going through chemotherapy for her stage IV lung cancer, Diane rode on (in addition to raising three boys, having a very successful career at General Electric, running 5 half marathons and always being a loving daughter, sister, wife, mother, and friend!!). When Diane could no longer ride the past couple of years, I could always count on seeing her smiling face at the rider regristration the day before the ride.
Inspired by Diane's love, persistence and generosity, I have organized the Crimson Canucks, a group of seven very good friends who have completed 50 PMC rides. The most exciting part is that the Crimson Canucks includes four of our kids, one of whom, Kira Hobson, helped save the life of her younger brother by doing a stem cell transplant when she was five years old. At the time, her brother Brett was six months old and suffering from a rare form of leukemia, JMML. Thanks to the miracle of modern medicine, and all of the research that goes into it, Brett beat cancer.
My hope is that the incredible fundraising tradition of Diane Legg, Team LUNGstrong and now the Crimson Canucks rides on and the amazing doctors, researchers and patients become the ones with the winning record.
Ride On!
mike
