Brookline Resident Going The Distance For Pan-Mass Challenge

BROOKLINE, MA — Brookline resident Marci Blacker had to borrow a bicycle for her first Pan-Mass Challenge 15 years ago. The breast cancer survivor had ridden around the neighborhood when she was a young girl growing up in Sudbury, but got into lacrosse, soccer and competitive ski racing as she got older, and thought her cycling days might be done.

When her friend, Melissa Jacoby, convinced her to ride the PMC for the first time for Team Perry in honor of Jacoby’s late husband in 2009, Blacker said she went back and forth with her for about 15 minutes on all the reasons why should could not do it, including the fact that she did not own a bicycle. Finally, she was convinced to borrow her friend’s sister's bike and make the 50-mile trek to raise money for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

"When I told my mom I was going to be riding for Team Perry she asked me if I even knew how to ride a bike," Blacker recalled. "I told her I had done it when I was young, and (remembering how to) was just like riding a bike."

Three years later, Blacker bought a bicycle of her own for the PMC. Two years after that, she went from the 50-mile, one-day ride to the 150-mile, two-day ride with a $10,000 fundraising goal. This weekend, she is marking her 15th year cancer-free, and 10th year riding in the PMC, with increasing her fundraising goal to $15,000 and going the full 192 miles from Sturbridge to Provincetown. As of Tuesday, she was within $2,000 of meeting her goal.

"Everyone says that if you are going to do it you should do it from Sturbridge at least once," she reasoned. "I don’t know how many more years I am going to do this — although I say that every year and I keep signing up — but I thought on this anniversary it would be good to do something special."

The PMC has become something very special to Blacker each year as she rides with Team Perry, which has raised more than $7 million for cancer research over the past 19 years. Team Perry is named after Jacoby's first husband — Perry S. Levy — who died of bowel cancer at 32 years old in 1999.

Blacker, a 1988 Lincoln-Sudbury graduate who has lived in Brookline for the past 15 years, was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 33. After she was pronounced cancer-free, she participated in the Susan G. Komen Race for a Cure, which led to Jacoby convincing her that she had the stamina and fundraising ability to join Team Perry.

"Now I am hooked," she said. "Biking is far more fun than walking."

Blacker said she enjoys knowing that she is helping to give back to the research that helped save her life and loves the camaraderie that comes with Team Perry and the PMC.

"I was an athlete who grew up competing," she said. "To me, this is more like the social event of the year. If the world could run as well as the PMC, it would be a better place."