This is a story about heart and lungs but really, mostly about heart. Susan ‘Sue’ Scrivens, Mary Ann Zakreski, Ellen ‘Ellie’ MacKay, Carolyn Nesbitt and Tiffanee Scorer have taken up a new sport and a serious challenge to show their gratitude for lives cut short, and to help raise money for a cure for cancer so that other lives, hopefully, will not be. On June 14th, the group, who've named themselves Sweet & Salty, will take part in the annual Ride to Conquer Cancer from Vancouver to Seattle, with an overnight stop in Mount Vernon, Washington.
Between the five of them, these women have nine boys and two girls and a whole lot of experience raising kids. Experience riding bikes, up and down and back up hills and on and on? Well that’s another matter.
They’re hoping that continuous training, which they began in January, will help them overcome that lack of experience.
“To get ready, we ride 20-25 km twice on our own during the week and one 'long' team weekend ride,” said Scrivens. “When we started out in late January our first long weekend ride was only to Xenia and back from the Cove, and most of us couldn't ride all the hills without a break. Week by week, we've increased distance and time, so we can now ride the hills to Cape Roger Curtis lighthouse. Since March we've been going off Bowen to ride 40-50 km around Steveston, or from West Van to UBC and back. In May, we take it up another level and we’ll ride 75-100 km on one or both days of the weekends.”
The challenge of this training is made easier by the motivation.
"My sister has breast cancer, and she doesn't have a choice about all the gruelling treatments she's had to endure since her diagnosis," says Scrivens, who adds that her sister seems to be doing well after surgery, six months of chemotherapy, and now, radiation treatment.
Zakreski says that when Scrivens asked her to do the ride, it was her sister she was thinking of.
“Sue’s little sister is only 43, and Sue is a really good friend so if she asks me to do something I’m going to do it,” Zakreski says. “But going through this training week after week, we all think of the people we’ve lost.”
For Zakreski, her mother, who died at the age of 51 of breast cancer comes to mind. So do the many women she knows on Bowen who have had breast cancer.
MacKay also thinks of her mother, who she lost four years ago to pancreatic cancer.
“It was very sudden,” she says. “My mother died three weeks after diagnosis. Then, just three weeks after I said yes to doing this ride, my mother in-law was diagnosed with breast cancer. So, for me this is about the strong women in my life and I’ve known this group of friends for a long time, so this is an opportunity to bond with them over something really challenging instead of a coffee shop in Vancouver.”
Scorer nearly lost her husband to cancer.
“He was diagnosed with a brain tumour fifteen years ago, when I was pregnant with our first son. It was malignant and inoperable, but almost by chance he found a surgeon in North Carolina who could perform the operation and he did, successfully.”
She adds that the road to recovery was a long one, but her husband is now cancer-free and the couple have two sons.
All the women say that the experience of training for this ride has been far more enjoyable than they expected, and it has given this group of old friends a chance to re-connect at a time in their lives when they don’t get to spend much time together.
The now-cyclists say Bowen’s hills don’t look quite as intimidating as they used to. For Tiffany Scorer, who lives at the top of Seven Hills, a bike ride to the Cove and back has become a reasonable expectation.
Bowen Bay road, however, is another story.
Still, they are pressing forward with new challenges all the time. This weekend, team Sweet & Salty is heading to Victoria for their first 100km ride.
Beyond the training and the epic ride itself, each rider needs to raise $2,500 in pledges prior to June 14.
If you want to help, make sure to donate to team members who have yet to reach the fundraising goal. There are also a number of other riders from Bowen taking on this challenge: Qurban Khalsa is a part of Riders for Ryders, Gil Yaron is with Paladino. To sponsor any of these individuals go to the website conquercancer.ca, click on ‘BC’ and then on donate and then punch in the team name.
Donating, of course, is about more than helping Bowen Island's cyclists in this event, it’s about to conquering cancer right alongside them.
