Doing it Again in 2010!

Last January I took on a challenge that changed my life when I began training for a 100 mile bike ride with Team in Training to raise funds and awareness in the fight against leukemia, lymphoma and other blood cancers.

I approached the challenge with a fair amount of trepidation: Could I put in the distance? Could we make a difference?Yes! And we did!

During the toughest economic climate cancer patients have ever had to experience in my lifetime, my pedaling and your donations made a huge difference in the lives of those fighting blood cancers! Thanks to people like you, we raised more than $12,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society for patient counseling, cancer research and financial assistance. Isn't that amazing? What I did individually was small potatoes compared to what we all did together as we ganged up against the bully that is cancer.

I have been inspired to fight leukemia since December of 1981, when I lost my sister Page at the age of 12 to the disease. Page was my idol, the big sister that I tried to emulate to the point that her friends referred to me as "Little Page". Look no farther than the picture at the top of this site and you will see how much I tried to be like her and how eye-gogglingly proud I was to be on the same cheerleading team as she was. After Page died, I wanted to fight - the disease, the injustice, all of it. But it took me many, many years realize that I actually had a weapon to fight it - sweat equity.

So this year, I am again putting in the sweat equity as my part in the fight. I will commit once more to early morning rides, windy and freezing cold (or roasting hot) rides, endless hours on both spin bikes and road bikes, eyeing monstrous hills and digging deep to overcome them and yes - once again singing the "Top Gun" soundtrack in my head to conquer my fear of fast downhill speeds. I'm committing to doing that (and as a bonus, blogging about it for your amusement) in hopes that you'll join forces with me to commit to helping end this disease once and for all, in this new decade.

Using last year as a guide, I will ride about 1,000 miles on my road bike as I train to ride 100 miles in a single day around Lake Tahoe, at elevations of 5,500 - 7,500 feet. I'm up for my challenge, and I hope that you're up for the challenge too.

I am completing this event to honor my sister Page, and I'm also a part of Team Jazz, a team my husband Jay and I have created this season to honor the memory of the first family pet we had together, Jazz Reid. We lost Jazz on January 4th from lymphoma. She was diagnosed last April as I was training for my first season, and we finally had to let her go. We miss her, but we are so grateful for the advances LLS has made in treating blood cancer, that actually make a difference in veterinary oncology as well. Those advances gave us 9 months with Jazz, about 8 months longer than we could have expected without the research and drugs LLS helped fund.

I am completing this event for all our heroes, our loved ones who have gone before us and those who still fight today, and we need your support to cross the ultimate finish line - finding a cure! I hope you will please make a donation, and support LLS in their mission of finding a cure to stop blood cancers from taking more lives.

If you'd like to follow my training progress, please check out my blog at http://blog.feline.org.

Want to know more about Team in Training? Visit https://www.teamintraining.org or send me an email!

Thank you so much!

"The miracle isn't that I finished.

The miracle is that I had the courage to start."

- John Bingham

I RIDE: In Memory of

Page Stanton

Buck Bowser

Cecilia "Sis" Voirol

Jazz Reid

Syd Goldlust

Thomas Chesser

I RIDE: In Honor of

Barbara Jean Hamersly

Buck Ranson

Charlotte Henry

Danielle Burgess