Monday, January 28, 2013


January 28, 2013

          This week is starting out with bad weather. Not that I care that much because my workouts are going to be inside for a little while longer. Last week’s workouts were on the medium intense side, 45 min leg spin episodes to get my bike muscles used to the grind ahead. I’m going to pick up the time a little bit but not the intensity, targeting an 85 to 95 rpm cycle for an hour. Today’s workout will probably be bordering on the harder side. You see today would have been my father’s 70th birthday. Usually I would get a call the day before from my brother that dads birthday was tomorrow because I always forgot things like that, hell I even forget my own birthday is coming up until I am reminded. I haven’t received that call in 2 years and the only way I realized the date was a Facebook post by both my brother and my mother. My mother today is dropping off 10 new teddy bear chairs to the Marine Corps base, her Facebook post is as follows:

Rosemary Dow

“Today, on what would have been Dick's 70th birthday I am delivering 10 new Teddy Bear chairs to the Marine Corps base at Cherry Point. These chairs go to the children of deployed Marines. The ministry that Dick started lives on and he would be proud of what we are still doing in his name. I am also very proud of both Rich and Mike and their efforts to raise money to fight cancer.”

   So today’s drive home from work was normal for this time in NH, snow turning to freezing rain making tonight commute for Michelle a big pain in the ass ! All the while in the back of my head my dad’s birthday and I imagine the smiles on the faces of the kids that will receive those chairs. Yes, I think today’s workout will border on the harder side….

 

Thursday, January 24, 2013


Jan 22, 2013

Hit the gym today and road for 45 minutes, including a 5 min cool down. I’ve been off a bike competitively for about 20 years. I did a few biathlons (running and riding, no swimming) back in the day before the Olympic committee made them change the name and ultimately killed the sport. I can’t explain how great it felt. I have always been semi in shape my whole life, my type of work requires it.  I have to say, being back in the saddle just felt natural….  Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself.

       My name is Rich Dow. I grew up in Acton Massachusetts and living in Sanbornton NH.  I am riding in the Pan Mass Challenge to help fight cancer. I had a very normal, safe, upbringing.  My parents were teachers in the ABRHS school system, we lived in Maynard, Ma for a few years until my parents bought a house in Acton just before my first year in school. I went to Merriam School 1-6, and in my 47th year of life I recall it was a great time.  Junior high was a blur, it was the late 70’s and I had no idea what was going on! Not to mention my mother was a teacher in the junior high which added to my stress, everybody knew who she was and the students made the connection between us.

               High school SUCKED for me. My father was a teacher in the high school system at ABRHS. He was an industrial arts teacher, (construction, tech drawing, auto-cad, and finally robotics). His students loved him. To this day I meet his former students from as far back as 1970 that tell me how my father had an impact on them. He was an “athletic coach/teacher”; if you had good grades and played a sport he would always cut you a break, in the halls, in his class, or just helping out. The pointed words being “played a sport”…. For some reason we butted heads in high school. I did the sports that were not in the top 4 (track, football, Basketball, Baseball), though I did try out for several of those sports and made the teams, my father’s incentives were clearly in the thoughts of the current coach’s. I was into skiing, totally off my father’s radar. Enjoyed by hippies and slackers, (he grew up in Boston an Irish catholic). After that, I distanced myself from my father in what I did for exercise. From there it was easy, he didn’t ask and I didn’t say. My brother on the other hand had a great relationship with my dad and I think that is AWESOME. !!! I love my brother and my father we just had different, let’s say, characters. In hind sight  I think that is what brought my brother  Mike and I together later in life, enough background and venting.

       This year I am back in the saddle and getting back into shape, real athletic shape anyway. I am riding in the Pan Mass Challenge, a 200 mile two day bike ride to benefit the Jimmy Fund and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. You see, my father past away in 2010 from prostate cancer, after a long 15 year battle. After his initial surgery the doctors gave him 10 years. With money, technology, and advanced treatments he made it an extra 5 years.

The last 5 years were, I would say, the most comfortable, normal days of our relationship. I am married to a great woman, the love of my life whom my parents adore, my brother is married to the love of his life whom my parents also adore and they have 2 great kids that Michelle and I will dedicate our lives to. I believe my father finally got to a point that he did not have to worry about us anymore and relaxed. 

                     The last 15 months of his life consisted of several trips from my wife and I down to New Bern NC where they retired to, a beautiful coastal town where Black beard made his final port. There, as a 44 year old adult I saw the full spectrum of my father’s influence. As a woodworking teacher with countless hours teaching students to build things, he saw a need in the neglected kids at the NC coastal women’s shelter that was just down the street. A simple Idea, a teddy bear chair. It was brilliant, so simple yet awesome to the kids who needed a little relief. With help from a few guys from his church they organized free materials, a place to build them, and a network of people to distribute these toys to kids in need. Man did it take off; today my father’s rocking chairs are featured at the New Bern airport in all of the terminals for the incoming and outgoing kids to use while waiting for flights. They are also given freely to families in need at the Cherry point Marine Corp air station to children needing something extra while there parent(S) are overseas. I am still awestruck, my father thought his life’s work was at ABRHS but in reality he got more from life in his last 5 years than he did in 36 years of teaching. He loved his athletes but I think he love the smiles on those kids faces more. Sadly my father passed away October 28th 2010 at 4:30 am, Twelve hours before the school he dedicated his coaching and teaching life to was to dedicate the track in his honor. My brother and I were not by his side in the end, he insisted we were at the track to accept this award in his place. ……

     This is where I come back in. Since that day in 2010 I have been slightly lost again you could say, but only slightly. They say, as a man, you never really become a man until you lose your father. You have no security anymore; you are really on your own.  Last year my brother Mike joined the Pan Mass Challenge with many of my old high school friends and several people from the old home town. This year I am privileged to be able to join them riding for Team Lick Cancer, and I have never been more rejuvenated. I guess I needed something to focus on, a cause, a … purpose, that I can use to give back and I think I have found it.

So please, follow me thru this year’s journey and beyond with the Pan Mass Challenge.

More to come

Sincerely

Rich Dow

To donate to my ride please clickn on the link or copy and paste this link. Your help will be greatly appreciated !!...
www2.pmc.org/profile/RD0176