Jon Siegel's Pan-Mass Challenge 2005 Diary

This is my second Pan-Mass Challenge - I rode last year, and wrote a diary which I posted here. This year, same as last, I rode well and had a great time so I won't repeat the details about logistics and timing. Instead, I'll concentrate on the things that made this year different from last.

Some basics: Same as last year, I chose the Wellesley-to-Provincetown ride: 86 miles on Saturday, and 80 on Sunday; 186 total. This ride is my motivation to get my body into shape at least once each year: I devote every weekend during June and July to training (and do a bit during the week as well). I worked my way up to 140-mile weekends by the second week of July and so was in good shape to enjoy the actual ride and didn't huff and puff my way through it.

I do this for two reasons, of course: One is to keep myself in shape, as I just mentioned. The other is to raise money for cancer research. The PMC raised over $20 million for cancer research last year (2004); this year the goal is $21 million and, if we all exceed the goal by a few million as we did last year, the total will be even higher than that. The PMC allows each rider to specify a target for his/her funds, so I've designated my funds to research on multiple myeloma, the cancer I'm currently in remission from. Since funds go to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, this sends them to Ken Anderson's lab, with some going to Paul Richardson's research. If you've read any of the research on MM, you've read about this lab and Paul's work, which is always in the forefront. If this makes you feel like contributing, you can do it now: Go to my personal PMC contribution page, fill in an amount and your credit card information, and bask in the good feelings you get from doing such a great deed.

I've been charmed with perfect weather both years - Once again, the weatherman predicted perfect conditions for this year and came through - not too hot, clear skies, gentle breezes. Repeating a successful tactic, I took a vacation day and arrived at Babson College, Wellesley, just after 4 PM to pre-register, eat some carbs for the ride, and chat with some of the few hundred other early arrivals. I stayed on campus so I could watch the televised opening ceremony in the pre-registration area. (The actual ceremony was in Sturbridge.) Of course the event was an excuse for a party, with food (lots of carbs, of course), music, a small expo with dealer displays, and whatever. Every rider wore a name tag so it was easy to find new people to chat with.

At the start, signs marked off spaces for us to divide into three groups: The fastest folk, 18 MPH and up, go first; a middle group, 14-17 MPH, follow; and the rest, 13 MPH and slower, bring up the rear. This year I managed to start near the front of the middle group and it seemed that most of the folks around me rode about the same speed as I. Since my average speed on the first day ended up at 16.9 MPH, even the numbers agree with the observation.

Here I am, lined up at the start with (by actual PMC count) 1,584 other Wellesley riders. After suitably brief inspirational speeches by some PMC folk and Red Sox co-owner Larry Luchino, at 8 AM we were off!

The first rest stop is just over 20 miles from the start; I recall last year that our crowd of riders had stretched and thinned out after the first ten miles but this year that didn't happen until about 18 miles. (This is important - you have to ride differently in a crowd, but can relax a bit when you have some distance to the riders around you.

Last year, the only pix I got were the few you see on the 2004 web diary, taken by a friend in my office as I passed by a pre-arranged spot about ten miles from the start. (I'm probably in a few of the PMC pix too, but haven't found them in spite of a fair amount of search time in the PMC picture gallery.) This year, we had a mini-family-reunion at the first rest stop where sons Josh and Adam met me to take some pictures. I took a small camera with me to take pix along the route as well. It was great to see them even though I couldn't take much time to chat.

There are two ways to reduce time on the road: Ride faster, and rest quicker. Last year, I spent a fair amount of time at the rest stops and felt that it slowed me down overall. This year I trained for both distance and hill strength, and didn't need much time at the rest stops before I was ready to head out again. So, here I am heading out again in this pic Adam snapped just past the first rest stop.

Two rest stops later and I came to the designated lunch stop, with assorted sandwiches, salad, carbo bars, and the 2004 World Champion Boston Red Sox (it feels great just to type that!) World Series Trophy. No, it doesn't have many carbs and the Massachusetts town tour was over but the Red Sox are one of the two principal PMC corporate sponsors so they brought the trophy to lunch. Here I am posing behind it - cool, huh?

As we ride along the route, every minute we're reminded of the good work that the event is all about - well-wishers line the road, cheer us on, put up posters and balloons (orange is the popular color), ring bells, and shout good wishes. The most frequent wish is "Thank you for doing this!" I've allocated all of my funds to research on Multiple Myeloma, the cancer I'm in remission from, so my efforts will help me and all of the hundreds of friends I chat with on the ACOR email list. Most of the other riders (excepting the other 200 cancer-survivor riders, of course) aren't quite this personally involved, but most do have friends or family with cancer. Riders wear tributes to their friends - names, pictures, ribbons. Some people or groups have lists with dozens of names. Cancer is much too popular a disease. The PMC, raising our large contribution for cancer research every year, definitely comes at a good time.

On Saturday I rode an actual 86 miles at 16.9 miles/hr, not counting time at the rest stops, leaving at 8 AM and finishing at the Mass. Maritime Academy in Bourne at 2:30 PM, half an hour ahead of last year. That put me in the first third of riders arriving at the site. The last rider pulled in just before 7 PM!

This year the PMC folks took the "Living Proof" pic at Mass Maritime at 6 PM, after the first day's ride was over. (This is the group picture of the riders who are also cancer survivors. Last year they took separate pix before the start at Sturbridge and Wellesley, but the Wellesley pic didn't come out. Bummer, right?) Of the 3,885 actual riders, 200 (exactly, I believe) of us were cancer survivors and almost all showed up for the photo session. We all got Living Proof T-shirts and smiled for the camera; when the pic is available I'll either put a copy here or link to it. I was scheduled for my post-ride massage at 6:30 which should have left plenty of time to finish the pic and get over to the massage tent, but the picture-taking was a bit late so I ended up running over as soon as the shutter clicked for the last image.

We get up ridiculously early on Sunday, because we have to clear the Bourne bridge by the time the tourists start arriving to spend their day on the Cape, perhaps as early as 7:30 or 8:00. The bridge is only 20 minutes or so by bike from the Mass Maritime Academy where we bunk down. Well before dawn, a state road crew blocks off one lane of the bridge for us with traffic cones. The earliest riders leave around 5 AM, before sunup, with the main group leaving around 5:30 when you can just start to see. (Yes, we eat breakfast in a tent lighted by generators.) This gets the last rider across the bridge, and the cones picked up, before the traditional weekend bridge traffic jam gets into high gear.

The Saturday ride is nice but it's the Sunday scenery that takes your breath away. Coming off the Bourne Bridge, we circle around to the east bank of the Cape Cod Canal and ride a couple of miles along the bike path as the sun rises above the horizon, with the canal on our left and the woods on our right, to Sagamore. Outside of Sagamore, we ride through State Forest on roads that go up and down hill, never level, shaded by pines. After lunch, we come out at the Cape Cod National Seashore, riding by the beach at Eastham and later through the dunes at Truro and North Truro. Sorry, no pictures - I haven't figured out how to take pix while riding my bike without slowing down. I'll work out something for 2006, so stay tuned.

I pulled in to the finish at the Provincetown Inn at 11:20, ten minutes earlier than last year. After taking care of the usual logistics (put bike into a truck headed for Wellesley; shower and change into civvies; duffel into its proper truck) I grazed through the lunch tent, chatting with a couple of guys who were also cancer-survivor riders as I finished a grilled hamburger, sausage, slices of melon, and multiple bottles of fruit drink to re-hydrate.

I used the remaining two hours before ferry time to see P-town's main street, ambling on tired legs from the Provincetown Inn to the dock. It's named "Commercial Street" even though it's not wide enough for two cars to pass going in opposite directions, and the top end is lined with Inns and Bed-and-Breakfasts. Every house has flowers somewhere, either in window boxes or in a garden or both, but the one in this picture was the best that I saw (and perhaps the best garden in the city). In town, the inns give way to galleries, restaurants, and shops. I gave in to my cravings and downed a large Italian gelato and, later, a tray of french fries with lots of salt.

I rode back from P-town to Boston on the PMC chartered ferry, sitting out on the back and sharing ride stories. Once again, we were escorted into Boston Harbor by a fire boat (the one in the pic at the bottom of this page) with hoses blasting into the air and a police boat with its siren blaring - when your group raises $20 million for cancer research and care over one weekend, people notice! On the dock, hundreds of well-wishers and the NECN news trucks and crew waited for us to arrive and disembark.

There we transferred from the ferry to buses which took the various groups of us back to our starting points. My trip to Wellesley passed quickly; back at Babson, I picked up my luggage and bike, said goodbye to yet another cheerful volunteer, and drove home, tired but satisfied - and didn't have to pedal!