This past Sunday, an all-star team rode among over a thousand other stationary cyclists at the fourth annual Tour de Pier to fight one of the greatest battles of all: pancreatic cancer.
“The Tour was epic and emotional from start to finish,” said Laurence Cohen, who organized the Pancreatic Cancer Victory Tour All Star team and celebrated his 65th birthday by participating. “It was a first for all of us. It won’t be our last.”
Each of the five members had either fought pancreatic cancer personally or had a loved one who did.
The team’s MVP, Lupe Romero-De La Cruz, was deprived of her passion to run throughout nine months of chemotherapy. However in 2013, she had a successful surgery and two months later, she completed the Los Angeles Marathon with another member, Julie Weiss.
“Not one day goes by that I don’t get emotional and thank God for my life,” said Romero-De La Cruz. “I know things could have been different. I am truly blessed.”
Weiss lost her father to the disease six years ago. In 2012, she ran one marathon a week to honor his memory and raise money for research.
“When my father passed away of pancreatic cancer in November 2010, I realized how poorly funded this disease was,” Weiss said. “It’s kind of sad that people are diagnosed when it’s too late and that was unacceptable. That’s when I realized I had to do something big.”
The team’s other members included Shawn Veronese, who ran a marathon a month to honor her mother Virginia, and Eric McIntyre, who rode over 6,000 miles through 18 states after his wife Liz passed away from the disease.
“It was all to honor Liz, and I didn’t win that battle, but I’m trying to make a comeback,” McIntyre said. “It’s important to understand just how crucial the fight against pancreatic cancer is. It is such a tough cancer and if we can get a handle on this one, we can get a handle on all of them.”
The team raised $475 for the Tour. Overall, the event raised over $1 million for the Hirshberg Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research, the Cancer Support Community of Redondo Beach and the Uncle Kory Foundation.
“The team was wonderful because we all have some kind of purpose and created something wonderful,” said Weiss. “We’re all just regular working people doing extraordinary things.” ER
