Swapping Her Keyboard for a Bike

Victoria Mariconti is no stranger to the Pan Mass Challenge. As a Wrentham resident and KP High School musician, she has been a part of the Cherry Street band, which provides a special welcome for cyclists as they ride through town on the route from Sturbridge to Provincetown.
This year, however, Mariconti has traded her keyboard for a bike and will participate as a rider in the 40th Pan Mass Challenge on August 3 and 4, cycling the full 192 miles to raise money for Dana Farber.
Her ride is dedicated to four people: Steven Mariconti, her father, who is in remission from thyroid cancer; Catherine Clark, her maternal grandmother, who passed away from colon cancer; JoJo Davis, a close friend and mentor, who died in 2016 from long-term complications after a battle with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma; and Jennifer McCann Black, her teacher at KP High School, who passed away on June 3 from angiosarcoma.
Mariconti was in Naples, Italy, for eight weeks this summer, which has complicated her training for the ride. She was working as an intern for the U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps, after finishing her first year at Georgetown Law School. At the time of this writing, Mariconti was scheduled to return to Wrentham on July 26, just one week before the Pan Mass Challenge.
“I registered for the Pan Mass before I got my internship notice to go to Italy, so I thought, OK, here we go,” she laughed, during a Skype video interview. Her summer was about to get complicated.
Despite the logistical difficulties in training for an event halfway across the globe, Mariconti is undeterred. She has always felt a special kinship with the Pan Mass riders because of her experiences at Cherry Street.
“I’ve seen people rally around this cause for the better part of ten years, and decided this is something I want to do,” she explained. “It’s something I get excited about every summer, so I knew I would just love to get in the race myself and do my part.”
Ryan Loud teaches percussion for the King Philip music program. In 2011, residents of Cherry Street in Wrentham asked him to organize some music when the cyclists came through on Saturday morning. Mariconti, a piano player, was one of his students and a natural choice for the small jazz band he formed for the event. He had taught her since her freshmen year and came to think of her as a professional colleague.
“Victoria’s personality and immense maturity made her stand out among the other students,” said Loud. “It was an obvious fit that she would be the keyboardist.”
That small jazz trio has evolved into a 20-piece steel band that now plays at the Pan Mass kickoff in Sturbridge on Friday night, in addition to Cherry Street on Saturday morning. Despite graduating high school in 2011, Mariconti has returned to play in both venues each year. After King Philip, she went on to study music at Boston College.
“I think she is an example to all of us and a true leader,” said Loud. “The fact that she is riding this year makes us all proud to know her and to be involved in this wonderful event.”
According to Mariconti, Naples is not a bike-friendly city. So, she has been training in a gym, riding the spin bike, and only occasionally heading out on the Italian roads for bike rides.
Mariconti says it will feel surreal to ride through Wrentham and down Cherry Street on August 3.
“I know I’ll pull over and say hi to friends and family, and it will be a good excuse to rest my legs,” she said. “It will be really exciting to be on the other side of it—riding—instead of playing.”
Riders in the Pan Mass Challenge can choose from twelve routes ranging from 25 to 192 miles. Depending on their chosen route, riders commit to raising between $600 and $8,500. But Mariconti says she is trying not to stress about the fundraising challenge. Instead, she is choosing to keep her focus on the reasons she is riding, and the hope the Pan Mass Challenge symbolizes for cancer patients.
“It’s about Dana Farber,” she reflected. “It’s about the folks we care about. It’s easy to get myopic and think about all this money I have to raise. But it’s not going to me, it’s going to Dana Farber through me. Whether it’s through my campaign or someone else’s, it’s all about getting the funds to them.”
For more information on the 2019 Pan-Mass Challenge or to help Mariconti’s fundraising efforts, visit https://www.pmc.org/. Click on the DONATE tab and enter her name or eGift ID (VM0045). Donations can be made through October 1.