HANOVER — Soon after Linda Muri was diagnosed with cancer in 2014, a small group of friends formed a cycling team to help fight the disease.
The Hanover cancer survivor still remembers how Team Muri’s debut in the Pan-Mass Challenge — an annual fundraiser for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute — made her feel.
“It was a lot of emotion,” Muri said during a recent phone interview. “It still is. A lot of feeling of support, being taken care of and being honored.”
Muri, who became a team member following her recovery from breast cancer, is once again gearing up for the PMC. The 40th edition of the event, set for Saturday and Sunday, has declared a fundraising goal of $60 million one year after hitting the $56 million mark. The event has raised $654 million since 1980. Riders can chose one of 12 routes ranging from 25 to 192 miles and commit to raising between $600 and $8,500 depending on their chosen route, according to a PMC news release.
The Hanover-based rowing coach has also participated in the Prouty — the fundraiser benefiting the Norris Cotton Cancer Center — annually since 2015.
“The reason I cycle is for these two rides, and so I add cycling into my training plan,” Muri said. “Normally, I would just mostly row and that would be it, but I’m to the point where I’m trying to get in these last couple of weeks 100 miles a week and do a couple of long rides back-to-back. …
“You need to sit on the bike seat; that’s the biggest thing. It’s not so much the pedaling, because there’s all the SAG (support and gear) stops, plenty of rest and lots of food and all that. But you have to be able to sit on a bike seat for 6½ hours. That’s what takes it out of you.”
The four-person Team Muri plans to ride 192 miles from Sturbridge, Mass., to the tip of Cape Cod in Provincetown, with a layover in the dormitories at Massachusetts Maritime Academy in Bourne. More than 200 donors helped Muri fulfill the minimum $5,000 pledge for her to attempt the 192-mile trek.
The former head coach of the Dartmouth College women’s rowing team identified multiple goals for the upcoming ride.
“I want to be able to finish it and not feel too badly off after a couple days,” the 56-year-old said. “Not getting injured is a big thing. Raising awareness. I think it’s important for breast cancer survivors to see other survivors being active and doing things. It gives me a chance to reflect and remember people who weren’t as fortunate as I was with cancer.”
Sunapee’s John Kravic is another Upper Valley resident, and one of some 6,700 riders overall, to register for the PMC. Like Muri, he has a personal connection to cancer.
“Back in 2015, my father was actually treated at Dana-Farber for acute myeloid leukemia, and he ended up succumbing to the illness,” Kravic said. “When I would go down to visit him when he was in-patient there, you’d have to go through this … I guess the best word to describe it is sort of this tunnel where basically you go down and the walls are just these murals of people on bicycles, and I was like, ‘What the hell is this about?’
“So I started looking into this Pan-Mass Challenge thing and had never really been on a road bike before, never ridden a bike probably more than 20 miles. And one night I was sitting there sort of thinking to myself. ‘You know what? I’m just going to do this.’ And I signed up, and I’ve been sort of hooked ever since.”
Kravic rode solo his first year, but he has since joined Team Nashua Rides for Hope, which includes 34 members.
“My first day, I just sort of take the whole thing in,” said Kravic, who made a pledge to ride 192 miles this weekend. “I ride by myself; I kind of just enjoy the moment. It’s just such a cool experience to be a part of. But then the second day, we all don our team jerseys and we actually ride in a pace line pretty much the whole way, and we all come into the finish line together.”
Kravic has completed his fair share of personal training for the PMC, but he emphasized the importance of teamwork.
“Anytime I talk about this event, I talk about it in a more global ‘we’ perspective,” the 31-year-old physical therapist said. “I couldn’t do any of this without my donors, without my support system, without my wife, my friends who are supporting along the way.
“I say it takes a village to make something like this happen. … It’s really been an awesome, awesome experience to just see the communities that I’ve been a part of come together and support something like this.”
Upper Valley riders Justine Seraganian (Hanover), Danny Sunderland (West Lebanon), Ralph Sweetland (Sunapee), Taylor Black (East Thetford) and Andrew Krentz (Norwich) are also registered for the event, according to PMC organizers.