Hologic - Cat Berge

Going All The Way

Click to read the Daily Race Notes from The Race Across America

"Everything is possible if you really want it," said Anna Catarina "Cat" Berge, the only woman entered in the 2005 Race Across America cycling race. Almost 40 percent longer than the Tour de France, RAAM is recognized as the longest annual endurance cycling event in the world today.

Cat excels at what she does - endurance. She can ride a bicycle from sunrise to sundown and then do it again the next day, and the next. Along with 140 riders from over 13 different countries, she set out on June 19th from San Diego, CA with the dream of traveling 3,051 miles through 14 states and all four of the continental United States' time zones before finishing in Atlantic City in less than two weeks.

Crossing the finish line late in the evening of June 30th to the cheers of hundreds of spectators, Cat finished the race in 11 days, 11 hours and 20 minutes. The first woman to finish the race since 2001, Cat is the new world record holder for a rookie woman rider entering the race.

She faced extreme hot and cold temperatures, high winds, rain and thunderstorms in the grueling coast-to-coast route. In the 11 days of racing she climbed 109,000 vertical feet across terrain that ranged from 100 feet below sea level in the Southern California desert to 10,550 feet at Wolf Creek Pass in the Colorado Rockies.

Cat's inspiration to bike competitively comes from her friend, Maria, who died of breast cancer. Maria's name is on her bike and her racing outfits. In Cat's words, "Maria died due to breast cancer.... only discovered by the time it had spread to the bones. Maria changed my life, as I stood by her side in her battle against the disease for 5 years."

Cat's effort was sponsored by Hologic.

"When I heard about Cat Berge, her commitment to women's health and her plans to race across America, I had to contact her and ask if she needed our help," Jack Cumming, Chairman and CEO of Hologic noted. "We come in all shapes and sizes and each one of us needs to use what we have to be the best that we can be. Cat shows what it means to live life to the fullest. She is an inspiration to us all."

The most important component of Cat's success is that she loves what she does. "Every ride is an adventure, feeling the body, mind and soul rejuvenated and reconnecting with nature," Cat wrote in a letter to the Hologic team. "To sit on my bike and look out over the Sierras, see all the flowers, the deer or the bear makes me want to be nowhere else.We only have one life, and we have to live every moment to the fullest."

For more on Cat's journey, visit the links on the left of this page.