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Ride for Life

30 April 2015

Louise Curtis has spent a great deal of her professional life inspiring people to keep fit and cherish their ability to enjoy physical recreation regardless of their age or abilities.  She combines motherhood of two (teenage daughters) with part-time work as a Group Fitness Instructor at Kilbirnie pool, and a Green Prescription Support Person at Sport Wellington. 

Her own diagnosis of an aggressive brain tumour has not stopped her professional inspiration for others; rather it has magnified it a thousand fold over the last two years as she says of her cancer, “I’m not having it,” and sets off for another cycle ride.

She says the cycling helps with the stress and the pain but it is also a powerful symbol to her friends, her family, her supporters, and her participants and patients, that each day is a gift and she will use her own actions to raise the profile for cancer research and support.

“I read everything about cancer research from The Malaghan Institute and I feel I’m part of a larger team – of cancer fighters and cancer researchers.  It’s my greatest hope that fewer and fewer people will have direct experience of cancer, or that it will become easily treatable.  And I know the staff at the Malaghan feel the same way.”   

Last year she rode thousands of miles to raise money for the Malaghan Institute and the Cancer Society, and 2015 is no different.  She has just completed the Bike the Lake 43km around Lake Rotorua, on Feb 22nd, and has the 117km Bush Cycle Tour, and the 100km Taupo-Rotorua Flyer in her sights for March and April.