Well, we did it! My teammate, Angie & I successfully walked all 60 miles of our Breast Cancer 3 Day Walk. It was harder than I thought, emotional, inspirational, rewarding and I'm so glad I did it. I fared a bit better than Ang did and escaped relatively unscathed by blisters, pulled muscles and generally just came away with an all-over soreness that went away in a few days. A little knee issue, but it's all better now. It really was amazing to see all the women and men walking - all different shapes, sizes, walks of life, and reasons for walking. There were pregnant women - and I mean PREGNANT and might give birth around mile 32. There were survivors and women who were going through treatment and it was amazing to me that they were able to get out there and walk. What amazing strength they must have.It really was a wonderful, lifetime experience that I would do again in a heartbeat, as challenging as it was. I was so happy to be able to walk in honor of my grandmother and in honor and memory of the thousands who have been touched by it. When all was said and done, the Atlanta 3 Day raised 6.6 million dollars for breast cancer research! Amazing.
The camp life was much better than I thought - it was about 45 degrees in the mornings, so we froze a little bit, but the days were beautiful and the community support and cheering stations were so great. It was kind of a disappointment not being cheered for everywhere I walked after I finished! The food was delicious - and they made sure we always had snacks and drinks on the route. Let me just say that there are peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on graham crackers that exist that I did not know about and I am on a mission to find them so I can have them at home. They are wrapped to look like ice cream sandwiches and are delicious. I had an awesome sleeping bag that kept me nice and warm at nights and the port-a-pottys, well, I just had to get past it. It is what it is.
And my teammate, Ang, was awesome! She soldiered through wicked blisters, bad arches and walked the whole way without getting picked up by one of the vans. She totally rocks and I had the best time being her teammate and tentmate. She is a true wilderness girl and without her, our tent never would've gotten put up. I called her a Red Feather, but she didn't so much like that - I just meant she had awesome camping skills, as opposed to Troop Beverly Hills, which is the troop I would have been a member of.
What a gift it was to have my health and such a wonderful support group to be able to do this walk. The Lord has truly blessed me!
Here are some pictures from the walk - enjoy!
Tent, sweet Tent. And yes, that's a TNT towel. We Know Drama, baby.
Ahh, camplife.
My nemesis, the port-o-potty's.
Tyler came to cheer me on at one of the cheering stations along the way!
Closing ceremonies - Everyone held up a shoe in honor of the survivors.
