I will be riding more than 100 miles on Sunday. Maybe 120. 17 September is the date of the Terry Fox Run in Canada.
Many of my readers will remember Terry Fox, the young athlete who had lost his right leg to cancer and ran into history as one of the Great Canadian heroes. Terry began his Marathon of Hope near St. John’s, NL to raise money for cancer research on 12 April 1980, he began. He ran a marathon every day, but had to stop on 1 October outside Thunder Bay, ON, after running 5,373km (3,339 mi), when his cancer had metastasized to his lungs. He died the following June at the age of 22.
Since 1981, Canadians have joined the Terry Fox Run every year in his memory, and to raise money for cancer research. The run is a true Canadian institution, and I have done it a number of times over the years. There have been, and continue to be Terry Fox Runs in places as diverse as Cuba, Malaysia, Hungary, and Vietnam, but there is no organized run in the US.
Yesterday, as I read the social media posts from friends back home in Canada about their plans to do the Terry Fox Run on Sunday, I recalled when Terry ran past my neighborhood in late-June 1980. It was right at the end of the high school year; it was a warm, humid day that fell just between a few damp days of rain and a few days of intense heat.
That day, and image of Terry as he ran through Canada, made a deep impression on me. I had taken up running by then, often with my father, a dedicated runner, on his routes through our hometown of Baie d’Urfé, and into Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, QC. My mother had just come through chemotherapy and survived her first battle with breast cancer. The sight of this heroic young man, with his tangle of curls and his distinctive hop-stride, smiling as he ran a daily marathon, meant something. If there was a single moment when I decided that running – and cycling – were important, then that might have been it.
My mother died of cancer 26 years later when it returned and metastasized to her bones and organs; She was 72. My father died of cancer in 2012, at the age of 86. He had been running on the treadmill at the Veterans’ Centre at the Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue Veterans’ Hospital almost up to his last weeks. Today, people I love are fighting the disease and I am, of course, unable to do anything other than stand by and watch, just as I watched Terry run by 43 years ago, as they wage their own heroic battles. They will win thanks to modern medicine and luck, and not due to anything that I can do. But I feel that I have to do something.
So, I am going to do a 100-mile ride on Sunday, 17 September to honor the courage and heroism of a truly extraordinary young man, and to support everyone fighting cancer. I would run, but I don’t have that much distance in my legs right now. My plan is to join up with my club’s usual Sunday group ride, and then to ride on for 50 more miles, or so.
It’s going to be tough. I have ridden 100 miles and more many times, but my longest ride this year has only been 75 miles. Some company would make this much easier, and it always does. I will post a full route, with waypoints and ETAs, so anyone can join me on this ride at any point along the way as I loop through central New Jersey. My plan is to map out a fairly flat route, and ride at @ 15-16 mi/h average, to stop for lunch around noonish, and to be finished around 2:00 pm.
I would be delighted if people could join me along the way, to ride along, or just to wave. I will post further details here, on Facebook, and on Strava.
If you can’t come, maybe you can dedicate your ride, walk, or run to Terry and to all of the people we know who are battling cancer. Otherwise, if you can, join a local Terry Fox Run, or organize one of your own. Send me your pictures and reports to matthew.friedman@bikerabbi.com so I can share them here. I will be raising money for the Terry Fox Foundation, and you can make your own donation to support cancer research.
Sunday, 17 September is the second day of Rosh Hashana and, although I don’t normally ride on Shabbes and Yontifs, I can think of no better way to welcome the new year than by honoring a great hero and doing a mitzvah. Terry was an amazing young man, and a constant inspiration. He was the greatest of all ultra-athletes, who ran more than 5,000km on a prosthetic leg, and only stopped when he could go no further. He is one of those uniquely Canadian heroes whom every Canadian knows and cherishes. With people very close to me facing their battles of survival, I feel that I have to step up and, in some minuscule way, live up to his example.
We all can.