Gaining Momentum

So this week has been terrible training weather, and I even took Friday off to train.  Although I am committed, getting myself motivated to ride around in the rain is just not happening regardless of what some of you hardcore people believe. I'm sticking with Laura...you are a tough crowd.  The rainy Friday meant we could do some behind the scenes stuff.  Karen Dubrofsky, the powerhouse behind the bestseller "Montreal Cooks" and the soon to be released "Recipes from Canada's Greatest Chefs" arranged for me to get my hands on the remaining copies of Montreal Cooks and to offer them to people as a fundraiser for my ride. Yes folks I have 3800 copies of this fine collection of recipes that I am selling with the proceeds going to my ride.  We met with Jeff Shamie and we are arranging to have a booth at the Just for Laughs Festival where we will be selling the books (let me know if you want some copies, they make great Channukah/Christmas gifts especially for companies).  Karen can't wait to see Whoopi hold up the book at her Gala.  We need to give credit where it belongs, Karen with this little idea has raised over $700,000 for the Hospital Foundation completely as a volunteer.  Her relentlessness and energy are absolutely infectious (excuse the pun).  We spend so much time coming up with ideas that sometimes I think if I could throw Simon into the mix, the roof would blow off the building. We were thrilled to hear that after 1 month I am over 1/4 of my goal towards the ride.

I was grateful for the opportunity to introduce Sivan, my niece who is doing her Masters/Doctorate in Health Psychology, to the fine work that Cedars does.

So this rainy day ,that was meant to be good for the body, was quickly turning into a day that was good for the soul.

While having lunch with Sivan, I received an email that brought me to tears, yes true, in the middle of Lafleurs.  A very generous donation to our Scholarship Fund at Share the Warmth was made out of the blue.  In fact I had to re-read the email to be sure that what I saw was true.

What I learned on a rainy, drab May 29th,  proves science wrong.  You see there are many ways to gain momentum and you don't always have to be pedaling or going downhill, sometimes you can gain momentum being perfectly still and surrounded by love !   

Thanks for the compliment but....

I really do appreciate the time many have taken to donate and send emails to me regarding the ride, but lets be clear....I'm no hero!  Crazy maybe, but definitely not heroic.  I always have said that when I was told I had cancer, I just kept saying, "put one foot in front of the other..and just keep going".   That is no different than a single mother who has spent years caring for a daughter with Crohns or a dynamic senior citizen who stood by her son dying of AIDS and carried on a foundation in his memory - you just keep going, putting one foot in front of the other.

What propels me is the concept of "What if ?"  Not in a guilt ridden way,  but what if you had the opportunity to do something to make the world a little bit better...wouldn't you do it?  What if by skipping Starbucks a couple of times a week you could help a child without means, have access to all the books and tools they needed to finish high school...wouldn't you do it?  What if that child by finishing school finds the cure for cancer...isn't it worth it?  

Recently I heard Mia Farrow speak and she summed it up by saying that "With knowledge comes responsibility....and now you know".

That's pretty much it...I know what it is to live with cancer.  I know that the problem with a safety net is that just like any other net it has holes.  I know that together we can create a world class cancer center at the MUHC.

And so I pedal, faster and further.  38 kms in my latest training ride.  For those who have been kind enough to inquire, no I haven't developed the callous and frankly I am not sure that Bag Balm sounds any better than Assos of Switzerland!  

By the way...now that you know....what are you going to do about it?

www.tourdelance.ca  or www.sharethewarmth.ca - what if ?????

Wondering About Fate

Is life really just full of  random coincidences?  Can something actually be predetermined?  

I am not religious but fate is truly something that makes me go hmmmmm (80's disco reference).

Was the intensity of my short relationship with Carmen Dubois, and watching her fight with cancer purely chance?  Was my joining Yahkdav purely random?  I can't be sure because in joining Yahkdav, I met Harvey and Marlene.  Harvey ended up bringing me in to The Farha Foundation, and opening my eyes to our human potential.  I met Eirini and changed careers. Because I changed careers I met Johanne and I was right back into charity, MGH and Breast Cancer. Through all those charities I met Simon, Debbie and so many people who have been pillars of my own struggle.  So is it really random?

When I was diagnosed with cancer i was referred to Armen Aprikian.  Not really surprising since he was the head of Urology.  Post surgery I expressed to Armen that I was really concerned about the field of psycho-oncology and patient care at the MUHC.   Two years ago Armen Aprikian was named interim Director of the Cancer Care mission at the MUHC and this week it was formalized, guess what, a major component of the program is psycho-oncology.  As I stood in the room invited by the Cedars Foundation (introduced by Anna B, who I met through Carmen Dubois) I smiled as I reflected on the road that brought me to the ride. Incidentally last year when I met Lance and committed to riding this year it was through the generous invitation of my friends Sandy and Leonard, who I met purely by chance at the gym.  

So you see I don't know what to believe about fate, but I do know that each time you walk through a door your life changes.  If anything is truly predetermined, then I will embrace this episode in my life with cancer as another road I need to travel before another door opens.

Thank you to everyone that has donated to the Ride for your support of Psycho-Social Oncology and Cancer Patient Care.  Please send this blog to anyone you believe may be interested and follow along at www.tourdelance.ca

After all, maybe fate brought you to read this page????

Notes to Self

Today was beautiful and I couldn't resist the temptation of another riding adventure.  This time I was alone so it allowed me ample time to reflect and make some mental notes:

1. Doesn't matter how much you slather, potholes hurt something awful.

2. If you are taking the bike path you better have a plan of how you are getting home.

3. We live on a mountain, so regardless how gentle the hill looks, after 25 kms. it feels like Mount Royal.

4. It is definitive, my left leg is my controlling leg....why do I know this you ask???

5. Although I don't know if a tree makes a sound when it falls in the forest, I do know that if you fall and plant yourself at the corner of Greene & De Maisonneuve (in front of the terrace of Cinq Saisons) standing perfectly still at a red light, people do notice, and incidentally no one gets up to give you a hand.

So thats the review of today...25 kms roundtrip and I only fell once.  I rode from my house across De Maisonneuve to Berri, down to Old Montreal and back across the city only to be faced with the hill at Landsdowne near the end of the ride.   I can honestly say I am happy to be back in the saddle (so to speak) and look forward to making improvements across the summer. Thanks to all of you who have volunteered to join Sam's Training Team, and I look forward to spending time and countless kilometers together in the coming weeks.  

Trainus Interruptus....Almost

As promised today was supposed to be the first training ride.  Well, I woke up it was 7 degrees, grey and windy.  In all honesty each one of these individual elments is in my humble opinion sufficient for a delay, but combined, folks this is the Trifecta of excuses!

I have never been the most athletic of humans (okay Bill you can stop laughing now), but somehow I make up in determination what I lack in interest.  Thanks to my folks I have always thought that I could succeed at just about anything if I tried.  So excuses aside, it's time to try.  After all, I bought the snazzy windbreaker for just a day like today

I decided to do my first practice ride at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve; no potholes, no traffic and no stop signs; don't you wish life was the same?  

I slathered on "Assos of Switzerland" ( I kid you not, I couldn't make that up).  Okay it has a disconcerting Mango smell, but a refreshing coolness that you may want to check out, whether your riding or not.  I won't tell.  I squeezed into my Lycra and quickly passed in front of our full length mirror.  This is not about vanity, this boy is on a mission. With the support of Marlene, Fern and Roxie, my first training run was on.  How did I do?  17.48 km in 49 minutes.  Mission accomplished.  All was good until we got home and I had to climb the 4 stairs to get back into the house.  The same 4 steps that I needed help from Abba and Fern to climb after my first surgery.

The weakness is back in my legs, but this time it is for a good reason.  Tomorrow is another training ride, and before you know it Marlene assures me my speed and endurance will pickup.  Stay tuned...we've just begun.   

The Reality

I picked up the bike and it's safely in the garage.  In order to get the bike you have to go for a fitting.  "They" say that it will make the riding experience more comfortable.  Well here is what "I" say.  Although we've come a long way from my dad picking up my bike at Canadian Tire and putting the old CCM together, at least in terms of price, we have still not mastered the comfort issue.  Hey folks this is the 21st century.  We send men/women to the moon.  Where is the "pillowtop" version of the seat?  A woman must have developed this just to get back at men, I'm convinced.

What is the most amusing is that you find yourself talking to a complete stranger, in public, about regions of your body normally not discussed.  

Hmmm..." okay you'll be fine once you develop a rider's callous".  Two questions; Since when did having a callous become something you look forward too, and can't I just buy one, hell I bought everything else?

Then there was the big question: When you squeeze yourself into the Lycra short with straps (when this is over I can join the WWF) are you supposed to go commando?  Drumroll please, yes, you slather your chamois with expensive cream, squeeze into the lycra, and then " place yourself comfortably on the saddle".  The definitive word here is "place".  Okay what do you do when everything you have "placed" decides to move with the first pedal movement, huh?

I also loved the comment " it takes awhile but eventually it will go numb".  What?  I don' want to go numb there, frankly I like having feeling there.  

So as I am training, if you see me riding by you with a grimace,  you can be sure that I am commando, and the numbness nor the callous have been developed yet.

On a personal note thank you to all of you who generously donated with the first letter.  

Thanks for your friendship, and Debbie M - I am riding for all of us.  I am doing this because I believe that we are entitled to a world class cancer center that heals both the body and the soul. That we can develop a model for psycho-social support that begins with oncology and can then be used for catastrophic illnesses of all kinds.  Join me in supporting The Tour De Lance.

Tell your friends about the blog and encourage them to follow along and  support me at

www.tourdelance.ca , go to riders and select my name.

Stay tuned, Sunday is my first training ride!!!!

Step 1

Here we go.  I made the mental leap and now the financial leap.  On September 11, 2009 I have will ride in the pelaton with Lance Armstrong and raise money for Cedars Cancer and Psycho-Social Oncology.  Lets be honest the 4 surgeries have left me in less than perfect shape, but we have 4 months to work on this body.  Steve at Martin Swiss was kind enough to find a reasonably priced bike and outfit it for me to start the ride.  In his own words ' If you can't do the ride, its not about the bike'.  

So the tools are there it is time to get the physical and mental side in tow.  I need to believe in me again.  I have to trust my body again.  Before I got sick I worked out with a personal trainer 3X a week and frankly I looked pretty good.  In the interim, I have lost confidence in myself and have felt betrayed by my body.  The next 4 months will be about me reconnecting with my body, and making peace with the past. 

 I am relieved to know I have a committed training team behind me, from beginner to advanced.  Thanks Andrea for taking the first step with me and the artsy photos.  Please help me in reaching my goal by going to www.tourdelance.ca and making a donation.  Please send this blog link to everyone you know and lets see if we can make it viral ( in a good way).

By the way the calves are natural I was born with them, I think they may be useful in the next few months.