Today, it’s about my fitness heroine Pansy Palmetto, a.k.a. Nancy Fish. This vibrant, inspiring, and mouthy woman succumbed to cancer on January 18, 2011 after many, many years of a flamboyantly determined effort to “kick cancer’s ass.”
I met Pansy on bikejournal.com, and wrote her saying “I gotta be your friend, I wanna be just like you!” I followed her on bikejournal but didn’t get to know her well personally. She inspired me to add more leopard print items to my cycling apparel.
Lessons I’ve learned from Pansy and from reading her writing, blogs and posts on bikejournal:
- Stay active no matter what else is going on in your life.
- Pursue your passions no matter what else is going on in your life.
- Spend time with people and get to know them, before it’s too late.
- Be as wild, crazy, outrageous and flamboyant as you want to be.
- Wear colorful clothing so they can’t say they “didn’t see you” in a court of law.
- Be opinionated and write about it. People will love you for it.
- Don’t be afraid to be so hot that potential mates need asbestos gloves.
- Never give up.
Thank you Pansy. Keep on kickin’ ass.
michelle rau 