CHAPEL HILL - When Magda Schijff's alarm sounds at 5 each morning, her muscles are stone. She moves slow, and her limbs shout in pain. Turning on her side and getting up and out of bed is a struggle.

But one hour later, spandex and jersey on, she's flying.

When most are still asleep, Schijff is pedaling her red recumbent tandem bicycle with her husband, Doug Zabor. The two loop through their northeast Chapel Hill neighborhood for at least 30 minutes before the sun is up every morning.

This has been their routine for the past 14 weeks, as they trained for the Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI). Started by two columnists at the Des Moines Register newspaper in 1973, the seven-day, 472-mile bike ride is the oldest, longest multi-day bike tour in the country.

Schijff, 57 and Zabor, 60 began training after being invited by Zabor's brother, Steve. Already a bike enthusiast, Zabor decided to try cycling with Schijff after he found a bike they could both ride comfortably. Getting the feel of the recumbent took time, but after many scraped knees, months of early morning practice and a few "divorce moments" as deemed by Schijff, the pair decided to take the RAGBRAI on.

"I was hesitant ... at first, I would try to get on a bike and I would fall over," she said. " We took a few tumbles, it has been an adventure."

Hearing the couples' training regimen and the details of camping in five different towns and biking more than 80 miles every day for a week in the middle of summer, you'd never guess Schijff has Parkinson's disease.

She has been dealing with the chronic, degenerative disease for more than 15 years. While getting up to exercise before dawn can be challenging for anyone, Schijff has a whole other set of battles.

"There is a lot of pain," she said. "I move slow, I talk slow ... when people hear Parkinson's disease, they think it's a shaking disease, [but] it's stiffness, it's movement."

Schijff, who previously worked as a nurse at Duke said riding each day has eased her Parkinson's symptoms. After biking 60 to 90 minutes, four or five times per week, she is able to decrease medication doses. Since beginning to cycle, she has taken two-thirds fewer pills overall, but her doses vary day to day, she said.

Cycling may alleviate some symptoms of her Parkinson's, but the RAGBRAI was intense.

"For a person with Parkinson's, it's like climbing Mt. Everest," Zabor, who works in marketing research said.

No amount of training could really prepare them for the experience, they said.

"I thought I was going to die; we went into this with trepidation" said Schijff, who pedals in the back of the recumbent bike, in a position called the stoker.

The couple rode more than 80 miles per day during the July 25-31 ride, from Sioux City to Dubuque, with more than 10,000 other cyclists.

"[It's] the most amazing thing having Parkinson's for 19 years that I could do this ride," Schijff said.

The upside to so much cycling was, of course, the pie - for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The rhubarb variety was especially popular with the RAGBRAI crowd, she said.

"There were people who went to every town looking for pie and ice cream."

The pie may have been grand, but the hills were certainly not. People think Iowa is flat, but those people should try biking through endless streams of corn fields and soybean fields for seven days straight to get a more sound opinion. That gives you a different perspective, Schijff said.

"It's not anywhere near flat ... and there's no shade," she said.

With the race behind them, the couple says they will continue to cycle every morning because of the benefits. The exercise has helped Schijff even more than a deep brain stimulation procedure she underwent a few years ago, which aimed to activate the dopamine in her brain so she could move more easily.

"Right now, she's getting more benefits from biking than from brain surgery," said Zabor.

Because the disease disables movement in patients, vigorous exercise may seem counterintuitive. "There's not a lot of Parkinson's people who will say, 'boy, do I want to go biking,'" he said. "That's the last thing they want to do."

Misdiagnosed for ten years, Schijff, who was born in the Netherlands and grew up in Ontario, began having movement problems when she was in her late 30s. It took more than 10 years and multiple doctors to diagnose her for Parkinson's, which is more common in older men. Researchers are not certain why cycling specifically is beneficial for Parkinson's patients, but pedaling at a higher rate may alter or allow more of the neurotransmitter, dopamine to reach the brain.

"We're possibly just priming the brain with this intervention in terms of changing the biochemical nature of the brain," said Dr. Jay Alberts, assistant professor at Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute.

Encouraging slower movement for Parkinson's patients may have been the norm in the past, but more doctors are recommending more vigorous physical activity.

"There's a level of intensity that in the past wasn't recognized or thought to be advisable for patients, but we're showing that some level of intensity is beneficial," said. Alberts, who is also the president of Pedaling for Parkinson's, which promotes cycling as a way for patients to actively fight the disease's effects.

"If you're taking your medication, that doesn't really depend much on you; you're just sort of a pawn in the treatment," he said. "What patients are feeling now, is that they can take an active level of participation in their disease."

And that, is what Schijff and Zabor hope to do for people affected by Parkinson's in the area. The couple hopes to start a cycling group, pairing experienced cyclists with Parkinson's cyclists on tandem recumbent bikes.

"When she was having problems 17 years ago, there was not a single doctor who knew anything about it," said Zabor.

Schijff hopes soon she will be able to get down to one dose of Parkinson's medicine a day combined with her cycling.

"Staying active, being involved with activities, and of course having a good husband is critical to support you," she said.