RCC- Bio for Profile in work news letter

Our newsletter at work is giogn to be profilign some of the people riding in the Ride to Conquer Cancer. I was asked if I would be the first one profiled. Of course I said yes. Here is what was asked followed by what I submitted....

Angela,



Will you be our first profile for the next newsletter? Do you have a picture in your ride gear? What information do you want to include? Here are some of my ideas:

1. Name

2. NCI Location and job

3. Biking information

a. How long you have cycled

b. Favorite memory!

4. Why you are participating



My name is Angela Bernardi. I am 32 years old and work for Louisville Oncology-Audubon as a registrar. I am new to biking. I used to ride all over the neighborhood when I was younger. When I hit Junior High School I was allowed to start riding to my grandmother’s house on weekends which was five miles away. It’s funny how small of a distance that seems now, but how far 5 miles was when I was 12.

Once I started getting friends with cars and then my own license the bike went away until last year when I got a bike from my husband for Valentine’s Day. It is a schwinn hybrid bike that I rode on weekends as long as the weather let me. By the end of last summer I had worked up to 7 miles. That’s a long way from 140 miles, but I’ll get there. I have been working hard cross training at the Southern Indiana YMCA building strength and endurance. I was able to get my bike out the other day and took a ride to the grocery store and back. It was only a four mile ride, but it was easy this year. That was a very encouraging moment for me early on in the training process.

I have had a few days already where I have asked myself why I signed up for the ride. Moments where I wonder if I really can hit the miles I need to hit to do this, but then I remember why I am doing this. I am doing this for my mother whom I lost to leukemia in 2002. I am riding for my best friend I lost to lung cancer in 9th grade. I am riding for the friends I have lost to breast cancer. For the friends who have survived various forms of cancer, and for the family I have that has been recently diagnosed with cancer. I am riding so the people who can make a difference and find a cure have the funds they need to make that difference and find that cure. I am riding so that one day no more children lose their parents, no more parents lose their children, and no more people lose their friends. I am riding because cancer sucks and there is a cure out there if we just do what we can to find it. This is what I can do to help find it, so this is what I am doing.