The Ride For Your Life Update
Thank you.
I want to start by saying thank you to the Ride For Your Life Team. Joan, Charlotte, Jim, Dad, Steve, and many other consultants and sponsors made the Ride For Your Life 2007 possible. We all volunteered a lot of time and energy to put this together. Without your involvement and diversity in expertise, we could not have completed such a pioneering feat. You know who you are (if you don’t your names and bio’s are on the website) This was a huge undertaking that has taken a lot of energy, time, and efforts to complete. In talking to others, events like this usually have used more money and more staff to complete. Great job!
THANK YOU TEAM!
In addition to the Ride For Your Life team, was the help support and donations from hundreds and thousands of people across America. I want to extend a huge thank you to everyone who was involved with donating hotels, food, bike necessities, personal necessities, and general encouragement. These things were what made this event possible. The days were long at times, and a lot of energy was expended riding for a good share of every day. You helped make things more affordable and more comfortable.
THANK YOU AMERICA!
Through your efforts, we can see that we have made a very small but significant difference in the fight against cancer and America’s overall health. I read in a USA Today article last week that cancer rates have decreased by 3% in men and stayed the same in women since 1999. They attributed these numbers to improvements in education, and prevention. However, we still need to work on women’s health. Let’s see if we can get those numbers to decrease. We are making a difference- let’s keep on going!
On a personal note:
I want to apologize for not getting to post a blog sooner to say thanks. The old blog had to be disabled which was unfortunate. Many schools, families, and survivors have been missing out on the opportunity to read about and share our adventure. As a result- I will work on reposting much of the information in the days to come. Thank you for your interest, encouragement, and “tracking” the journey along the way.
I have been traveling home from ride 50 and been trying to recover emotionally, physically, and spiritually from the Ride For Your Life endeavor. There are many exciting and hysterically funny stories to be shared. It has been a whirlwind these last few months. It may be tough to imagine what it was like riding in all 50 states in 50 days and covering over 5000 miles, so I will try to recount these stories in mediums to come. The rides were completed in every kind of weather possible with every kind of rider possible, which always makes for a great conversation. In addition to the rides, a significant amount of energy and time was expended to maintain and manage our team of diverse individuals and all the details involved in a trip like this. For example, details worked on included: hotels, food, mechanical support, food, sleep management, food, financial management, food, ride logistics, food, driving, flights, timing, survivor relations, travel, riding 100 miles per day, food, and overall morale for a tired team. At times it was tough mentally, and at other times it was tough physically, however, the whole time I would not have changed the experiences or feelings for anything.
The Ride For Your Life was an exciting adventure that had a great underlying cause:
Cancer survivorship.
Many of us have been affected by this disease and many more, unfortunately, will be. After losing my mother to the disease and seeing first hand, what my family has gone through, every day was worth the fatigue. I am very grateful to have had this experience and I am very appreciative of all of your efforts made by our team and America. This could not be done without you.
We are making a difference. We should all continue to take one pedal stroke at a time forward for our own health. Once we do that- we should all KEEP ON GOING!
Watch for more to come!
In Health-
Gary Gianetti, M.S.
Ride For Your Life- Founder
GaryG@HealthyAltitudes.com