And I did it without a single blister!
So I did it. I put one foot in front of the other and completed the Avon Walk. It was, quite honestly, a lot harder than I thought it would be, and every bit as rewarding. It was a lot of things, actually. Fun, inspiring, parts were easy, parts were miserable, some of it was boring, the scenery was beautiful. Mostly, I'm glad it's done.
Step by step it's not that hard, I mean it's walking not technical climbing or anything. But all those steps build up and after a dozen miles or so you feel it. By the end I was gimpy, having strained the top part of my calf muscles. Those muscles and general fatigue made getting up at 5:00 a.m. to walk again on Sunday super hard, but I did it.
The event was a lot of monotony because as I've explained, long-distance walking is more a mind and time game than an endurance contest. As I walked a seemingly endless path I thought all kinds of things. I thought of marathon runners -- heck, I can hardly walk this distance and people RUN it? I thought of the western emigrants of our country's mid-nineteenth century who walked from Iowa to San Francisco without the benefit of Avon-organized Gatorade stops, port-a-johns every two miles, and modern athletic shoes. I thought of how different my motivation is now from theirs then and wondered what it would be like to swap places for a few miles. I thought of professional athletes and the Olympic hopefuls who were (on that very day) vying for spots on our Olympic team. I thought of professional athletes and all the good pain medication and other drugs those folks get, but that was mostly toward the end when my calves began to hurt with each step.
There were very emotional moments -- the opening ceremony featured speeches from three walkers who were each fighting breast cancer, all valiantly, some with grim outlooks. For a while on Saturday I walked behind a woman who wore a sign reading "I'm walking for my mom. I miss her so much." Other people had tee shirts printed with the names of everyone whom they were walking in honor or in memory of -- some of those shirts had long, long lists of names, and I could only think that they knew so many people with breast cancer because they themselves were battling the disease.
In the end the three women I walked with hit their limit before I did. Two fell victim to altitude sickness, which can be a problem in Colorado (the event was 3,500 feet higher than our home in Boulder) and another's knee gave out. Walked 20 miles on Saturday (though I'd hoped to do the whole marathon), and when I stopped, I knew I just couldn't walk another step that day. I made it to between 20 and 21, and when I crawled into the "sweep" vans that shuttle people like me to the resting place for the night I wondered how I'd be able to recharge in time for the next day's effort. But Sunday's 13.1 miles flew by. I hardly felt them at all, buoyed by adrenaline I guess. I finished the race with a woman I'd trained with (briefly) here in Boulder whom I just happened to run into at a pit stop. She and I, and her walking friend Linda, raised our arms as we crossed the finish line. I was very proud, but also sad the women I'd begun the race with weren't able to cross the pink finish line with me.
With your help, I raised $2150! All together the women and men walking in the Rocky Mountains that weekend raised more than three million dollars for breast cancer research. That's amazing.
I'm glad I did it. I'm glad it's over. Since the event I have worked nearly every night in our garden, pulling out, so far, a total of ten wheelbarrows of weeds. I don't think I'll do another long-distance walking event because of the reasons I've explained in this blog. But I think I'll do other organized races and events. Small ones. I never thought I'd be the kind of person who looks for ways to squeeze more exercise into their life, but I am now, and I'm going to embrace it.
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