PMC 2023: A short recap

Given how alternately hot and stormy this summer has been, we are so lucky that the first weekend in August was just about perfect. Switching to flat pedals and sneakers really helped my feet, and although I had some other soreness toward the end of Day 2, on the whole, it was a great ride. It felt good to have a completed 2-day ride again; my first since 2019!

I cried a lot on this ride, thinking about Robert, thinking about the people I know with cancer right now. It was hard, but I am so grateful that was able to do it.

And I have photos!

End of Day 1!

Day 1 sunset in Bourne.

Day 2 sunrise on the canal.

Took a scenic break at the dunes in Wellfleet!

Feeling ok at the final water stop of Day 2, in Wellfleet!

PMC 2020: Sort and Bittersweet

Well, we did our PMC. It was incredibly weird to be out on the route on the Cape, occasionally encountering other riders (often in the their own PMC gear) but no cheering, no ice couches, and no fluffernutters.

We did see this amazing omen on our way to the Cape, though.

We had planned to ride two legs of the Cape route, but I had an awful time sleeping the night before and when I got up at 6:30am (after tossing and turning starting at 3am), I told Matt I didn’t think I could do two legs. We decided to just do one, arguably the prettiest leg of the route, from Nickerson State Park to the Wellfleet elementary school, about 18 miles on the Rail Trail and some of the prettiest back roads of Brewster, Orleans, Eastham, and Wellfleet.

Because we were in no rush, and because we didn’t have a PMC photographer on the route to mug for, we stopped in a few especially pretty spots for photos, including the Boat Meadow salt marsh in Eastham and the beach (White Crest Beach) at the top of the hills near the Beachcomber in Wellfleet.

We made it to Wellfleet elementary much sooner than expected, so we sat and cheered on the handful of PMC riders we saw come through on their own rides.

We definitely missed the usual amenities, however (not pictured: massage tent).

All in all, it was a pleasant reminder of why we ride. Although it was a fraction of our regular ride, we are so grateful for everyone’s continued support. Team Sara G has raised nearly $13,000, in a year where none of us were even sure if we would be able to ride at all. We are hopeful that next summer we will all be out riding our full two-day route from Wellesley to Provincetown. Until then, thank you and stay safe!

 

PMC 2019: A Belated Recap

I promise I DID ride, and it was great! It just turns out that it’s hard to write a recap when you have a baby distracting you.

PMC weekend went really smoothly. On Saturday morning, Maggie and I got up with Matt and Darren, and drove them to the Babson start, to save them the 9 extra miles of biking to the start in a year when we hadn’t trained so much. It was a gorgeous day and by all accounts, they had a pretty easy ride to Bourne.

Thanks to my mom coming up and staying with me on Saturday night, I got a great night sleep and didn’t have to worry about Maggie in the morning (she slept in later than I did, anyhow!).

Not a morning person.

I drove myself to Babson for a second time, and met up with Jeff and Christine, and their friend Andrew, and we all got ready to ride out together. It was a gorgeous morning!

Sunday start at Babson. Photo credit: Christine Riley

The 50-mile route is lovely and fairly easy to Gillette Stadium. Very shady, overall downhill, and fast! The crowd – both in terms of the number of riders and the number of spectators – is a lot smaller on Sunday, but the volunteers were amazing and I really enjoyed the ride. When we got to Gillette, we even got to ride our bikes through the stadium, which was actually pretty cool.

That’s me! Riding my bike around the stadium!

Ready to roll out back to Babson. Photo credit: Christine Riley

Christine had warned me that the ride back to Babson after Gillette was less easy, and she was not wrong! It’s only 22 miles or so back, but it’s generally uphill overall, and the last 10 miles in particular you never really get a good flat section or downhill section, so you’re really working the whole way. We also climbed two decent hilly sections (including Moose Hill, which is pretty, but goes on for a while) during that portion of the ride.

Having never done this route before, I missed the final turn to go back to Babson, along with the folks I was following, and we went back in to the campus the wrong way, missing the finish line! I did eventually find it, and rode my bike over it and back in, just to make sure I officially finished. I tracked down Jeff and Christine, we grabbed a burger and beers, and toasted to our efforts.

I’m thrilled that I managed to do the PMC this year, just a few months after having Maggie, and I really enjoyed the 50 mile ride. I am planning and hoping to be on the 2-day ride again next year, but I love that this option exists as it’s certainly easier to train for, but still gives you the chance to do something challenging and raise money for a great cause.

To that end, Team Sara G raised just over $23,000 for Dana-Farber Cancer Institute this year! Fundraising closes on October 1, so if you meant to give and didn’t get the chance, this is it! Regardless of whether you are able to donate, I really appreciate everyone’s encouragement and support. Next year will be year 15!

PMC 2019: Abbreviated

I got out for a ride last Sunday! I had only planned to do 20, just 10 out, 10 back. I got to the 10 mile point where I’d planned to turn around (at Charles River Road for those who know the area), but it was so lovely out and I felt good, so I felt like I could do more. I know there was a short marked loop I could do, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember how many miles it was. I thought (was hoping) it was only 5; it turned out to be 8. Which was fine! Only 3 more miles. But those last three miles heading home were TOUGH.

Still, I’m glad I got out there. Doing 28 on my own makes me feel like even if I am not able to get out for another ride before August, I can do 50 with a crowd. I haven’t done a training ride completely on my own in a long time! It was such a nice day that about a hundred other cyclists were out, but it was still weird.

This coming weekend, Matt’s going to do a 50 on Saturday, and we’re trying to figure out when I might be able to go for a ride. Worst case, I can squeeze something in on a weekday morning.

What I can’t just hope to squeeze in or muscle through is fundraising! That I have to do. I gave myself way less time to get this done than I normally would, so if you have been meaning to donate, now is the time! Every dollar we raise goes to Dana-Farber to help them fight cancer and care for patients. The link is in the sidebar!

PMC 2018: Six Weeks Ago (oops!)

Despite my total failure to get our 2018 PMC blogged in a prompt manner, we did indeed ride the PMC! If you were following along on Facebook, you saw that it was rainy on Saturday, and for me, slow.

But I promise, I had a good reason, and I don’t want to bury the lede, so: I’m pregnant. And when the PMC rolled around six weeks ago, I was already quite a few weeks along. I’m not sure I could have ridden much faster if I wanted to; nausea and whatnot. But I was also told to keep my heart rate at no more than 90% of my max, and not to overheat, which meant taking it VERY easy. I’m so glad I decided to ride; it was challenging, but I really enjoyed making it work and riding with Matt.

Saturday’s weather made taking it easy, well, easy. Team Sara G headed out from Roslindale at just before 6:30 a.m., and got to Wellesley just in time to merge onto the route with the riders who actually started at the starting line. I lost Matt and the rest of the team, but Matt and I regrouped after a few miles, and actually rode the entire rest of the ride together.

If I sound surprised, that’s because I am! Matt is faster than me even when I’m able to go all-out, and sometimes finds taking it easy . . . challenging. It seemed like he was legitimately reluctant to leave me on my own this year, for some reason.

Anyway, the first raindrops started to fall as we rolled in to the lunch stop. Despite our reduced speed, we weren’t all that far behind our usual time (it turns out that the difference between my usual 16.5 mph PMC average and this year’s 14.5 mph PMC is not that significant over the 50 miles from home to Dighton-Rehoboth). The rain really started coming down, which meant the lunch tent was unbearably crowded, especially for someone who wasn’t feeling great. I was starting flag, too; I was definitely having trouble eating as much as I usually would on PMC. Matt and I scarfed down some food and headed back out in the now-torrential rain.

We slowed down even more after that. We were lucky in that we seemed to be in a pocket of weather where the rain was very heavy, but it wasn’t windy and we didn’t see any lightning. That said, my bike computer, which is connected to my phone and apparently therefore gets weather alerts, was almost constantly flashing weather warnings: Severe Thunderstorms! Flash Flood Warning! TORNADO WARNING! Despite the many, many warnings, no such cataclysm every materialized.

We rolled (though I felt like I was virtually staggering) into Lakeville. One of the toughest things about this PMC for me turned out not to be the fact that I couldn’t enjoy my post-ride beer, but the fact that I couldn’t have Advil. Generally, on any long bike ride, Matt and I both take Advil before we start, and at least once during the ride, to ward off the worst of the aches and pains. Although I could have Tylenol, Tylenol doesn’t really do a whole lot for sore or tight muscles. Still, by the time I got to Lakeville, I was willing to try it, and was thrilled that the medical tent was stocking it along side the sweet, forbidden ibuprofen. I took my pills and then took a seat on the ice couch while I chatted with Rachel, who wasn’t riding this year but who was volunteering (all day in the pouring rain!) at the Lakeville stop. Rachel and the ice couch boosted my spirits, and Matt and I headed out to the final waterstop.

Usually, the best part of the final waterstop in Wareham is the misting arch you can ride or walk through, but obviously that wasn’t so relevant this year. At this point, Matt and I were both really tired of being soaking wet, so we put our heads down and powered through the the MMA. We regrouped with Rich and Darren, and huddled under the tent with the other soggy riders to enjoy some food!

Rich offered to get a Lyft to take us to the hotel so that I wouldn’t have to ride over the bridge in the rain, which I happily accepted. Matt and Darren hoofed it while Rich and I took the bags and our bikes. Our driver was so kind, and didn’t even mind that we made a huge mess of his car in our muddy, soaked bike clothes.

To say that Sunday was an improvement would be an enormous understatement. For one thing, Matt and I both woke up feeling great, and not even a little sore (contact points aside of course). Turns out, when you take it easy on day 1, you have a lot of energy on day 2. On the downside, since we’d spent more time than usual actually on the bike, my feet and hands were feeling a bit less (ok, a lot less) happy. We were able to keep up a decent pace, and although it eventually got sunny and a bit warm, it stayed nice and misty through the first half of the ride.

 

After the halfway point, I started to feel pretty foot-sore and a bit nauseated, so that was a tough stretch. But at Wellfleet we picked up Rich and I got an excellent (as always) shoulder rub.

We then powered through the last 20 miles to P-town, sore feet and all. For the first time in my memory, there was no headwind or crosswind on Route 6 as we went through Truro. I’ve never been so grateful.

Not as grateful as I was to get off my bike and out of my bike shoes once we got to the Provincetown Inn, though!

And with that, another PMC was over. The next year will bring some obvious changes, but we both plan to ride again next year (I might have to do a shorter route for a year, though). The PMC is a really important part of my year, and I’m so grateful for the support that enables me to ride and fundraise each year.

We are still fundraising, until October 1. We’re just $500 shy of getting a second member of the team to “heavy hitter” status, which would mean a lot. So if you have been meaning to donate and haven’t had the chance, now is a great time!

PMC 2018: Two weeks to go!

We are in the home stretch of PMC training and fundraising! Getting in the miles last week was tough, as I flew back late Saturday night (really early Sunday morning) from a  conference in Milwaukee. If you followed these posts on Facebook, this will all be very familiar!

I didn’t get home till almost 2 a.m., so when I woke up Sunday morning after just a few hours of sleep, Matt talked me into postponing my ride until the following day, reasoning that I was exhausted. I was easily convinced, of course, and took Monday off to get in a 50-mile solo ride. Unfortunately, I had trouble falling asleep Sunday night and so wasn’t in a much better position to ride when I woke up Monday!

This is my “I don’t really want to ride” face.

But I’d already taken the day off, so I managed to choke down a banana with peanut butter (have I mentioned I am really, really bad at eating first thing in the morning?), put a spare banana in my shirt pocket, and rolled out the door. I got a much later start than I had planned because of the aforementioned trouble falling asleep. Given that I was tired, and riding by myself, I decided that I would take a break every ten miles or so and actually take some ride photos for once! Planning in advance to stop made me feel less guilty for doing so, and made the 50 miles less of a lonely slog than it might have been.

My first stop was in a spot I almost always stop for a second at anyhow, as it’s at the top of a little hill, is usually shady, and is a good spot to swap water bottles.

Just past the intersection of South St. and Charles River St., about to cross said river.

HOT.

Cute little spot, right? I was feeling pretty hot here. The first 6-7 miles from the house to the start of South St., a popular biking route, are pretty sunny and the pavement gets really hot.

The whole next part of the ride is much shadier though, and quite pleasant, as you bike along streets with names like Pleasant St., Glen St., Farm Rd., Bridge St. (where you cross the Charles River for the second of four times on this ride), and Forest St. The ride cross past or through a lot of Audobon land, which is of course lovely. Eventually, you hit a slightly scary intersection with route 27; I took my second break after crossing that.

Most of the ride looks like this.

Feeling a lot better!

From there, the ride takes you in a huge loop through Sherborn before bringing you back to route 27. Dowse Orchards has a farm store here; I think it might be closed on Sundays, but it was open on Monday and had fruit, Gatorade (only orange and red though, shameful really), and water. I was a little short of 30 at this point, but it seemed like a good place for a snack break.

Heh, Boggastow.

BYO-Banana

Feeling rejuvenated after said snack, I pushed through until I crossed back over the Charles River for the fourth and final time, and pulled over just at the bottom of the hill from the very first set of photos. This is one of my favorite spots on this ride, as there’s also a little waterfall here, although you can’t see it in this photos (it’s the drop-off that you might be able to make out in the first photo). This also happens to be the start of the “return” stretch of this ride, where you double back along the first (last) 11 miles or so, so it really feels like you are almost done when you get here.

All in all, a successful solo 50+ miles. In fact, once I got out of the city, traffic was very light, as most people were at work. I saw very few other riders, which could have been an issue if I’d had a problem, but it was nice to go miles at a time without seeing a car. Any ride over 30 miles is kind of a pain to do solo. Taking the breaks added a lot of time (I was riding for about 3 hours and 40 minutes, but I was on the ride for nearly 5 hours!) but was worth it for my sanity.

That said, I am looking forward to a short ride Saturday, and hopefully a long ride Sunday with the whole team if the weather forecast miraculously improves. If it doesn’t, I might be looking at another solo ride some day next week!

In the meantime, our team has about $5000 left to raise to make sure we all hit our minimums. You can donate to any of us (we can redistribute the money we each raise to make sure we all hit the goal), but you may as well donate to me so I can get bragging rights! The link is in the sidebar!

PMC 2018: Pushing Through

After our July 4th ride, we knew we needed to really increase our mileage, so on Sunday, we headed out with a goal of getting at least 50 miles in. The weather was (finally) amazing: high 70s/low 80s, far less humid than it had been, with a light breeze.

Getting going was a struggle; a medication changeover for me meant no more swollen feet (yay!) but meant I woke up dizzy and nauseous (boo). I managed to eat a teaspoon of peanut butter, and then figured I should just get out and get going to see if those symptoms eased up. Matt had to wrap up some emails, so I hit the road without him. He’s MUCH faster than I am, so I knew he’d catch up!

I moved at a decent clip for the first 16 miles or so, then pulled over to take a little break and wait for Matt.

Matt approaches!

I still wasn’t feeling so hot, so we had to decide between doing the “medium” (37 mile) version of the ride we were on versus the “long” (52 miles). We were only a mile or two from the split so we had to make a call, and ultimately, Matt convinced me we should just suck it up and do the long ride.

Which we did! But after another 7 miles or so I was really hungry (teaspoon of peanut butter is not, it turns out, a sufficient breakfast) and having serious regrets. Luckily, Matt remembered that we could go off the route a little bit to Richardson’s Ice Cream in Sherborn, where I had a ride-saving grilled cheese and a few bites of Matt’s moose tracks ice cream.

Matt takes off his bike gloves to eat when we stop. I don’t, because I am an animal. I couldn’t get a grilled cheese pic because I ate it too fast.

The food did the trick and we headed back out. Although we felt better, we both started to really slow down around mile 40. This ride was a solid 15-mile jump in mileage and the day was heating up a bit, and we were both really feeling that. At one point, I was so zoned out that I missed a turn and ended up in Framingham ever so briefly. Thankfully, Matt knew exactly where I was and was able to tell me where I went wrong when I called him.

This is where I stopped when I realized I missed a marker. I called Matt and said I missed a turn, and he literally said “Did you pass Adesa yet.” This road was bleak, y’all.

I ended up with my slowest ride so far this summer, but we got it done, and this time the only casulaty of the ride was Matt’s package of Shot Bloks, which he dropped and which promptly got run over by a car.

The PMC is now only a few weeks away, but getting in a 50-mile ride makes us feel more prepared for the 90-ish miles we’ll do on Saturday (we ride 9 miles ot the Wellesley start so we get in a little extra) and the 77 or so we’ll do on Sunday. We only have a few weekends left to trainso we’ll try to bump the mileage one more time this coming weekend, and then do a double the weekend after that, before tapering and doing a casual ride down in Newport, RI when we’re down there for Folk Fest the weekend before PMC.

That also means we have less than a month to fundraise our minimums before we ride! Darren has destroyed the rest of the team, so Matt and I really need your help to catch up! Although big donations are always welcome and appreciated, we honestly raise most of our money through normal $25 donations. Every single dollar goes to the Jimmy Fund and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, in the form of unrestricted funds that DFCI can use to fund research into new life-saving treatments, build facilities to care for patients and families, or develop programs to make cancer treatments a little easier on children. Although I do have friends who have been treated at DFCI, patients at other hospitals and facilities also benefit from the work they do. If you are able to donate in any amount, we would really appreciate it! Links to donate are in the sidebar.

PMC 2018: Heat Dome

So apparently there’s a heat dome over the eastern U.S. right now. July 4 was actually the coolest it was or is supposed to be all week, and as Matt and I had the day off, we decided to squeeze in a ride in the morning.

Because we are us, though, we overslept, and didn’t actually roll out till about 10:30 a.m. Honestly, leaving a bit earlier wouldn’t have mattered a ton, as it was well into the 80s already by 8 a.m. and we wouldn’t have gotten out any earlier than that.

So this ride was a struggle, in multiple ways. First, the heat. I’ve been biking to work, but I hadn’t done a training ride in a few weekends, and had not yet done one in any kind of real heat. My bike computer collects temperature data, but the mid-to-high 80 degree temp we had for most of the ride doesn’t really reflect how brutally hot it felt in the sun. I felt like I was riding through quicksand, and was shocked when I got home and saw that my average speed wasn’t actually slower than my previous rides. That said, the whole ride was really tough – I tried to go as fast as I could in shady flat spots as I was really hurting during any sunny uphill stretches. In fact, as you can see at the above link, during the last 4 miles of the ride, when the temp spiked into the 90s, my speed fell accordingly.

Second, about 14 miles into the ride, Matt pulls over and shows me a problem with his rear tire: the tire is bulging. When you see a tire deformity, it means some part of the tire has failed and the tube is trying to bulge through. He took some air out of the tire, and we headed out on the next section of the ride, which is a nice high-speed downhill. I made Matt take it super slow as I was worried about him blowing the tire while flying down a hill at 45 mph. We got down the hill fine, but seconds after we turned onto the next street and headed back uphill – bang! – exploded tire. As we were a good 15 miles from home, even by a direct route, and as it was a holiday and nothing was open, there really wasn’t anything Matt could do other than call a Lyft. I headed out to finish 22 more miles on my own (though not before taking his spare water, which proved to be vital as again, nothing was open).

Piece of tire poking out through the giant hole in the tire.

Matt after his Lyft back home.

Third, and feel free to skip this part as it’s not really about biking, though I will keep it short: As many of you know, I’ve been unable to get pregnant since my miscarriage three years ago. At present, we’re doing IVF and IVF-related things, all of which involve dumping huge amounts of various hormones into my body. Frankly, I feel like crap most days. As far as an impact on biking, I can feel it this summer (I didn’t do any cycles the last two summers during training, but this summer decided to do one). My feet were absolutely killing me as I rode, because swelling. I had to stop every 5-10 miles to relieve that. I feel super tired all the time, which is very obviously bad for getting up early to bike (hence the oversleeping) and then also for the actual biking. One of the hormones causes me to have really severe back and hip pain after about 7-10 days on it, so I have about 5-8 days before that kicks in. I’ll make it work, but it’s taking a lot of the joy out of training, as it’s hard to zone out and enjoy the beautiful areas we get to bike through.

Obviously, cancer – and many cancer treatments – are more painful, more incapacitating. Unlike IVF treatment, cancer isn’t a choice. I try to think about that when I don’t want to get out of bed, or when I need to stop riding to rest my feet. I try not to get mad at myself for being slow this year, or frustrated that a ride is taking longer because of the stopping, and I instead try to remember why we ride. We ride for our friends and family who have felt the impact of cancer. It’s that simple. We ride so DFCI can continue to develop treatments that are less painful and more successful. Although this might not be the most fun training season I’ve ever had, keeping those goals in mind does help me push through and get it done.

 

PMC 2018: On Luck

Team Sara G is back for another PMC. Just like last year, we’re starting in Wellesley and ending in P-town. Two days on the bike, about 170 or so miles.

This is my 13th ride, and so to be cute, when I was out on my first training ride of the season (don’t worry, I’ve been bike commuting all spring!), I was using the hashtag #lucky13.

And I as rode, alternately struggling up hills and cruising along flats, on a gorgeous 70-degree Saturday, I felt pretty lucky. Matt wasn’t able to ride with me, but I knew he was home, ready to come get me if I had a mechanical or other issue. I had plans with friends for that afternoon/evening, and nothing at all planned for Sunday (my favorite kind of Sunday). I made good time, and arrived back home without incident, happy to have stretched my legs for a few hours.

But less than two hours after I finished that ride on Saturday, I got news that I had been dreading: Prof. Mark Pettit, who taught me contracts when I was a 1L, who volunteered to judge every moot court, who came to every student event, and who was the kindest professor I have ever worked with, passed away after a battle with cancer this past year. His wife Elaine died last fall, from ovarian cancer. Despite that cruelty and despite his own diagnosis, Mark remained kind and positive. Although he wasn’t able to teach this year, he was able to return to the law school in the spring, to attend faculty meetings and interact with students, and I guess to say goodbye.

I have not one but two law school classmates who were diagnosed with two different forms of cancer this past year. They both kick ass, and they are both fighting, but it very obviously completely, totally sucks. One of them is being treated at Dana-Farber. A former law firm colleague has been documenting her battle with lung and bone cancer. She’s benefited enormously from a targeted therapy developed by oncologists at DFCI.

Cancer is mean, and exhausting. A cancer diagnosis can feel like just about the worst luck in the world. The work done at DFCI literally gives people hope, gives them time, and maybe gives them a lucky break.

Cancer research is expensive. Cancer treatment is expensive. These days especially: Dana-Farber’s CEO, Dr. Laurie Glimcher, reports that the NIH’s budget has declined about 20% in real value terms since 2003. The NIH therefore cannot support most of the research being done at teaching hospitals. Events like the PMC make it possible for DFCI to do the work it does; last year, the PMC raised $41 million dollars. Help us do it again this year by donating to me, to Matt, or to the team as a whole (links on the right). And thank you.

 

PMC 2017 Recap: Late, and Also Short.

Well, I fully intended to write a thorough, hilarious PMC recap. Then life happened to me, and all of a sudden it’s nearly the end of September, and more importantly, the end of PMC fundraising season. (IMPORTANT – right now, Puerto Rico needs everyone’s help, all of it, so while I would love to raise a bit more money for the PMC, if you can only make one donation, make it to one of the organizations listed here: http://www.losambulantes.com/.)

So without further delay, here’s a recap of Team Sara G’s 2017 PMC, in photos:

We begin! Candace got a head start on us, but the other members of Team Sara G met up just outside of Babson to roll out together. I don’t know why I look so goofy – I blame my lack of sleep.

I felt pretty good at the first water stop, and rolled out from there with Rachel.

I was PSYCHED that I got to lunch early enough to get pasta salad and seafood salad. Matt was horrified that I would eat seafood salad. But look, it wasn’t even hot out it!

The day remained pretty drizzly and cool. I was definitely lagging by the second to last stop, though I was glad to see from Del’s frozen lemonade!

By the last stop, I was ready to be DONE. As you can see from all the people sitting down, I was not the only one.

But I pushed through, and was happy to inhale a burger and a beer before we rode/walked over the Bourne Bridge to our hotel for the night.

The next morning dawned came, and Matt, at least, was ready to go!

We all made great time to the first water stop. Matt and Darren rolled out ahead, but the rest of us needed a little more coffee and food.

I personally felt kind of slow all day, and my average speed reflected that, but we managed to stay ahead of the big crowds at most of the water stops. Everyone else must have slept in!

I hit the wall in a major way between Nickerson and Wellfleet. I was having a lot of all-body pain, a clear indication I did not train enough. I forced myself to get to Wellfleet as fast as I could, so I get get a massage and take a longer food break. I’m glad I did, because this year, Wellfleet also featured dogs! So that was great.

Sunday was much warmer, and tons of people were jumping in the water when we finally reached P-town.

This year, the PMC got more volunteer photographers. I found a ton of great photos from Sunday. Finding Saturday photos is harder because we’re all wearing the same shirt (and the helmet number capture didn’t work well, unfortunately). But check out these photos, in which Darren gives a lot of thumbs up!

All in all, not my best PMC physically, but it was great to have more of Team Sara G riding again. And we raised a boatload of money for Dana-Farber, which is awesome! Thank you all for another year of support!