7/22/06 Live Like You Were Dying

Jane Tomlinso

I came across two stories today that made me do a little pondering...Survival of the Fittest was a story about a woman named Jane Tomlinso. Jane is two weeks into her 4,200 mile ride across American. She's out to raise money for charity. Sounds like a big venture, but something that isn't all that crazy. What is a little out of the ordinary though is Jane was told in 2000 that her breast cancer had spread to her lungs and bones and there was no hope of a cure. She would have 12 months to live. Six years later, Jane is alive and kicking. Well more than kicking Jane is an animal when it comes to exercise and something that might very well helping be Jane to stay alive as long as she has. Yes, she does take some great drugs that's increasing women's life expectancy now when they have cancer as opposed to say in the 70's. Jane also has a very positive outlook on life as well!

Jane just had a sesion of Chemotherapy just 8 weeks ago and suffers excruciating pains in her spine and pelvis where the cancer has attacked her bones...and yet she rides...not little hour or two bike rides around town...but 4,200 bike rides...

When Jane was told she had cancer she had a big turning point in her life. Before she was diagnosed, she was not even a sports woman. In 2003 she completed an Iron Man triathalon, she's ran in several marathons and many long bike rides.

Her 4,200 ride is being billed as the greatest endurance feat undertaken by a cancer sufferer.

Check out Janes site, check on her progress, read her blog, and make a donation: http://www.janesappeal.com/


Marla Streb

The other story I ran across today was about someone I just learned about last week when I was at the mountain bike races in Sonoma. Her name is Marla Streb. She is one of the luna racers and as I started to read about the racers this Marla woman kept standing out. She was very funny for one thing. You could tell by her biography down to a picture of her on her bio card. She's riding a bike with a cell phone in hand. She seems to love danger and the faster she can ride her bike the happier she is. I found out she was married and had just had a baby and I wondered if she would be racing. I went to the races on Sat. and didn't see her. My partner when on Sunday who happens to be a photographer and I asked if she could get some pictures of her which she did. You'll see them below(pictures coming soon).

Then I came across a story of her today Dave Albee: Streb's latest challenge - mountain-biking mom In this story I found out that Marla wasn't always into mountain biking. 15 years ago Marla was working as a cytogeneticist at Duke University and found out she had tested positive for the AIDS virus. She was having to deal with the thought the she didn't have long to live. So she quit her job and traveled to California with her boyfriend in a VW Bus and lived a pretty crazy life for awhile.

The good news was that once in California Marla got retested and found out she didn't have aids after all. She tested a false positive. She started settle down a bit more and got a job. Her mode of transportation was riding her bike to and from work. She fell in love with riding and started racing bikes...


LIVE LIKE YOU WERE DYING

These stories find me just a few weeks after one of my co-workers sister who was in her early 20's went to the hospital because of a really bad headache. She died that same day...the doctors haven't totally found out what happened. Life can be taken so quickly.

I find us humans interesting folk. I so wish, "we all could live life like we were dying"...(great country song by the way) but it usually takes something major in our life to make us realize that we really don't have THAT much time here on earth and we want as much opportunity as possible to live that life we were born to live... to it's fullest... How would you start living your life if you found out you didn't have that long to live?