Pan Mass Challenge 2013 – Please join me in the fight to lick cancer

If it's the first weekend in August, then my 5,000 closest friends and I are biking 200 miles in the Pan Mass Challenge.

We're riding to lick cancer.

This scourge is everywhere.

We ride for for everyone, everywhere, touched by cancer. 

It’s that time again – the Pan Mass Challenge is coming up the first weekend of August, and this will be my tenth year as part of the PMC. Every August, riders along the 2-day, 200-mile route are part of a village on wheels that comes together each year to fight cancer.  The 5000+ riders, and the volunteer bike mechanics, massage therapists, folks who prepare and serve food and drink, folks who come out in droves to cheer us on, and say “Thanks for riding,” all join together in support of a cause.  We need your help to support this cause — the Jimmy Fund at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. 

Thanks in large part to the generosity of PMC corporate sponsors, 100% of every dollar you donate goes straight to the Dana Farber – no overhead comes out of your donation, so it can go straight to work supporting the Dana Farber’s cancer research and patient care missions.  

This year, Son No. 2 will be riding both days of the PMC for the first time. (He rode one day last year.) He hasn't been training much, but he's young and strong.  We did a hilly 50-mile ride recently, and I'm sure he'll be fine.  I'm pretty much recovered from a herniated disc which kept me home on PMC weekend last year, and I plan on riding the full distance again this year.

We're counting on you to help us out, and to help the cause.

As a cancer survivor, I know how important this cause is.  I’ve benefited directly from the high-quality care provided by the Dana Farber and its affiliates, and I know that too many of us have had occasion to benefit directly or indirectly from the care and research that sustains us and our loved ones.

This scourge called cancer runs through all our families and communities, and we're riding to make it stop.

In some ways, the ride in August is a two-day party – but it is a deadly serious one, beneath all the fun and camaraderie (and loud music, and bubbles, and costumes) out on the road.  We’re deadly serious about sticking it to cancer.  We’re deadly serious about striving for a world that’s cancer-free.  And we are crazy and determined enough to come together and work at making that dream a reality by pulling off a stunt like the PMC every year.

Join us. (Talk about crazy …. That's me on the right, getting 'bent — on my recumbent bicycle — riding with a good friend on Martha's Vineyard eaarlier this season.)

Please contribute to the cause by going to my Pan Mass Challenge profile page.

Sponsor Son No. 2's ride by going to his PMC page.

You can sponsor us both by clicking Donate on this page, and entering both our names (one at a time) in the search for a rider field. 

Please share this message with friends, family members, colleagues and business associates who you think will be moved by this cause to join in and contribute as well. (Click those Facebook and Twitter buttons up top — it's easy!)

In my eight years of riding (and one of virtual riding), you have collectively helped me raise over $50,000 for the cause. Thank you. Over the 33 runnings of the PMC to date, the PMC community has raised over $375 million for the Dana Farber. The group goal this year is $38 million. Once again, please join us.

And please follow along the first weekend in August – whether you’re by the side of the road, or following along at home via Twitter, on TV, or simply sending us your good vibes, we draw strength from your support.

Thank you.

(Each year when I ride, I carry with me a list of names of those for whom I ride, whether in their memory or in their honor.  When you donate, feel free to let me know of a name you’d like me to carry with me this year.)

David Harlow
The Harlow Group LLC
Health Care Law and Consulting