A week of tragedy and triumph

The past week for me has been one of tragedy for some friends of mine mixed with the triumph of seeing the Midi Smiddy riders successfully complete their 560km ride to raise money for cancer research.

Last Thursday I was in Sydney at a conference and caught up with some work collegues. One of them seemed very upset and told me that just the night before she had been told by her Dad that her Mum had just been told that she had a stage 4 melanoma and would be having surgery the next day. It all came as such a shock to my friend and reminded me just how important the research work that is being done by the Mater Medical Research Institute is and how important it is for us to find ways to raise funds to support this effort.

As I was preparing to write this post I received an email advising of the death of a former work collegue who I spent time in the Army. He died yesterday at the age of 48 from Kidney cancer. It again reminded me just how widespread this terrible disease is and many lives are touched by it.

As I thought about these two sad events I was strengthened by the knowledge that 50 cyclists plus support crew had just finished the Midi Smiddy ride and raised around $100,000 for cancer research!! A truly wonderful effort by all of them.

So a week of tragedy and triumph which is for me a reminder of why I am doing the Smiddy Challenge and riding 1600ks in 8 days in September this year.

For those of you following this blog I hope you feel inspired to support our fund raising efforts and donate through our fund raising page at http://www.smiddyfundraising.com.au/cycd_for_bikes

Thanks