Posted on
Oct 8, 2009 by amy
I can’t believe my ride starts in less than 2 days. I feel a mix of emotions and keep going back and forth between incredible calm and “Hurry hurry Friday, get here already! I’m so excited I want to ride NOW!” I’m not nervous though about the ride itself – I just feel proud of how far I’ve come since April when I decided I would ride in the Hershey’s Tour de Pink. At that point, a 2 mile run was torture and I felt slow to recover when I exerted myself. Now I can ride 60 miles and feel fine afterward. This weekend I went down to Wildwood Park which has a 3 mile loop through a conservation area in Harrisburg. I just went to relax and walk but got bored and so for fun decided to sprint up the hills. And it wasn’t lost on me that during treatment there was a period of time I couldn’t physically walk the whole way around that loop. TDP Goal One- get my health back – Check.
My second goal for this ride is to raise... read more >>
Posted on
Sep 30, 2009 by amy
In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, here are some of my favorite things about being a Breast Cancer Survivor. There are actually more, but here are five for now:1. I’m warmer than I used to be. This is purely my opinion but I honestly believe I’m more cold resistant since I went through menopause. To explain- chemo induces menopause but in my case just before starting chemo my doctors gave me a Lupron shot in an attempt to protect my ovaries and preserve my fertility. So I spent 10 months in menopause- hot flashes, mood swings, the works. The positive was no PMS for 10 months (PMS on top of cancer treatments- I would have been a nightmare!). Ten months later I emerged- no more menopause. During that time I packed all my heavy sweaters away- I couldn’t stand to wear them due to the hot flashes, which was so weird for me because prior to that I always dreaded winter - I felt like I could never get warm. But even now I still can’t bring myself to wear them- ... read more >>
Posted on
Sep 29, 2009 by amy
Sunday was my “long ride” day and I headed back to Lancaster County for a 56 mile ride I had printed off of the Lancaster Bike Club’s Scenic Tours website (the “Susquehannock” Ride). The route started downtown at McCaskey High School and I rode quickly to my first “point of interest” - Lancaster Central Park - where a woman in Colonial dress stopped me and told me I couldn’t actually ride through the park. I explained I had to or I’d get lost (I even produced my sweaty folded up bike cue sheet as evidence - as in “take THAT- I do need to go through here”) but she stood her ground and explained there was a battle going on and she didn’t want me to get caught in a skirmish. I then realized many of the people around me were also dressed in 1860’s garb, that she wasn’t merely out of fashion, and I agreed that I didn’t want that either so I detoured and managed to pick up the route a few miles away.
... read more >>
Posted on
Sep 21, 2009 by amy
My dad tells me training for a specific event requires specific training and so my running shoes are banished to the closet for the month of September and my living room coffee table is pushed to the wall to make room for a bike on a trainer. No more early morning runs, now it’s intervals on the bike to get in some last minute preparation and strength building for this ride which I can’t believe is coming up in less than a month (I’m getting excited!!!). Steve from my bike shop also set me straight and informed me there was 20 pounds of pressure in my tires and I could tell from his tone this wasn’t a good thing. Riding with full tires was so much nicer than what I had been doing.
So here’s my training update: Friday night I was back at the Jersey Shore for more family time and this time I was better prepared with routes that avoided traffic. Saturday morning I loaded coffee into my system and my bike into the car and drove to Cape May Courthouse and rode... read more >>
Posted on
Sep 14, 2009 by amy
Last weekend I headed to the Jersey Shore and rode 55 miles around Wildwood, Stone Harbor and Cape May and the experience was …well, unnerving. Bike lanes and common sense amongst tourists/motorist were equally in short supply and led to some close calls but I finished in one piece. I am headed back to NJ for Labor Day weekend and plan to stay inland and away from scary drivers.So that is my training update but as far as life as a cancer survivor is concerned, I’m officially suffering from an identity crisis. It’s my hair. It may sounds trivial but bear with me. Chemo altered my hair follicles – that’s its job really- to attack rapidly dividing cells – it didn’t know my hair follicles were harmless and they ended up a casualty. And now I am a brunette whereas I spent 32 years as a blonde. I was warned this could happen and was prepared- the year I went without hair I changed wigs daily – red, blonde, black/blue, long, s... read more >>