My mom, his wife Cathy, was the reason he decided to participate in the Pan Mass Challenge for the first time. Cathy fought stage four breast cancer for five years before passing away in hospice care in 2009. The first time I picked up the phone to call and vent to her and I realized I couldn't is a moment I'll never forget. Then, I heard my dad's voice on the other line, rather than the familiar voice of my confidant. See, because while I lost my mom, which is a great loss, my dad lost his everything; his identity as a part of a couple, his true love, his one and only. On Saturday, I took the backseat for the first time.
I arrived at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, the finish line of the Sturbridge, Bourne ride, around 3:30 p.m. on Saturday. All around us were riders and their families, hugging each other with smiles and talking about their rides. My dad had begun his ride at 5:30 p.m. in Sturbridge and I was nervous I had missed his finish. I waited anxiously at the finish gate, squinting to distinguish my dad's face underneath his helmet and sunglasses.
We sat on a patch of green grass behind the portable showers in the greeting area, as he described each cut on his hands, legs, arms, shoulders and knuckles. Luckily, the conversation switched from his injuries to the ride itself. Seeing my dad finish the race in the condition he did was really inspiring. I knew my dad loved my mom, but I guess I didn't fully realize its impact on him until he finished his ride for someone who wasn't even there to greet him at the end of it.
Cori Newcomb lined up with her team, Miles for Mary, at the Pan-Mass Challenge starting line in Sturbridge wearing jerseys covered in ladybugs.
For Newcomb, 38, of Raynham, this year was her second riding the PMC. She is riding the full 192-mile, two-day route from Sturbridge to Provincetown.
Newcomb was one of hundreds of area residents riding in the PMC. For Taunton resident Dan Rezendes, this year was his first time riding the PMC.
Now it was his turn to ride.
This year is also the first PMC for Brockton resident Matthew Auger.
The signs and support from volunteers, spectators and riders helped motivate him.
One spectator’s sign hit home for Kovalich, who lost her father to cancer in 2008.
Kovalich said she saw one sign in Lakeville that read “47 miles to the bridge,” a countdown to the finish line at Mass. Maritime.
According to Billy Starr, founder of the PMC, 5,300 riders participated this year with an average of $6,700 in donations per rider.
Decked out in a Hawaiian lei and skirt, Jim McCusker emphatically waved his arms in the Remington-Jefferson school parking lot yesterday, encouraging and directing hundreds of cyclists toward a water stop along the Pan-Massachusetts Challenge route.
McCusker has ridden in the annual bike-a-thon that raises money for cancer research and treatment at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute eight times and has volunteered for the past five years. McCusker was one of 65 to 70 volunteers who descended on the school complex to hand out cups of water, administer first aid, repair bicycles and direct the roughly 2,900 cyclists who visited the water stop yesterday morning, said Abbe Miller, who organized the Hawaiian-themed rest area.
Cyclists passed through Northbridge, Uxbridge, Mendon, Bellingham and Franklin along the Sturbridge-Bourne route. Other bikers left Wellesley yesterday on a 163-mile, two-day trip to Provincetown or shorter routes.
Milford resident Mary Morin came to Franklin to support Phil's Phriends, a team of about 20 riders that formed in 2003 soon after her husband, Phillip Morin, died from colon cancer.
Phil's Phriends includes Franklin School Committee Chairman Jeffrey Roy - Phil Morin's friend and Milford High School classmate - and Franklin Town Administrator Jeffrey Nutting.
Doug Urmston, 46, a Bellingham bladder cancer survivor, rode in his second Challenge.
Dana Cosby, 59, of Marlborough, who used to bike competitively, rode in honor of his parents, who both died of cancer. At the Franklin water stop, meanwhile, 53-year-old Eileen Wallace volunteered for the first time. Wallace, a breast cancer survivor, said she was amazed to see so many people supporting a cause close to her heart.