I recently walked the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure in Arizona with three of my girlfriends. I'm proud to report that our team raised
I walked for my mother, who is a breast cancer survivor. They caught it very early, luckily.
I walked for her best friend, Bobbi Gordon, who got breast cancer more than 25 years ago, before most people had even heard of the disease. After several remissions, she lost her battle.
My first race ever was the Race for the Cure 5K in Washington, DC, and that was for Bobbi, too. Somewhere along the line running and Bobbi and breast cancer became inextricably linked, the way certain scents bring back memories.
It actually felt wrong to be walking instead of running, but I knew that was just in my mind.
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| Early morning start, piece of cake for the East Coasters! |
The scenery and weather could not have been more pleasant. Aside from an all-night downpour on our second night of camping, and a few sprinkles on Day 3, the temperature was perfect for walking or running, and as swamp dwellers we really appreciated the arid desert air. It was overcast for much of the time, but the sun peeked out on occasion, slipping behind the clouds just before it started to get hot.
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| We walked around Camelback Mountain and through lovely neighborhoods |
Walking 20 miles a day makes your feet hurt and your body tired, even if you are trained in long distances, no matter how slow the pace.
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| Feeling good at the end of Day 2 and 40 miles |
The crew and crowd support was impressive. There were a lot of creative outfits on the volunteers that included pink fur motorcycle shin guards. I saw some hilarious signs, such as "Save A Life, Grope Your Wife!" and this t-shirt:
The walk itself was like a really crowded race course start, but with no running allowed. Also, we had to wait for pedestrian crossing signals in huge groups. Confession: I'm not particularly good at waiting. It's probably one of the main reasons I stumbled into running in the first place.
The prohibition on running only got to me when we were a mile from the end of the day's walk. I had to suppress the urge to shout, "If we RAN we could be done in 10 minutes!"
I have to admit, walking for three days put me in a serene state of mind. It seems to have had a calming effect on my usual impatient, get-places-quickly mindset. Here's hoping that newfound patience takes root for good.
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| Team Wonder Women Walking after 60 miles |
this sounds so much harder to me than running a marathon or 50 miles or whatever. hard to just walk!
ReplyDeleteLovely report. Amazing signs. That Hello, Kitty sign ... well, it just made my morning. Congrats on completing a cool event for a great cause—and good for you for stretching your mental horizons to tackle a walking endurance event (just remember how badly you wanted to run next time you want to walk during a workout!)!
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the 3 day walk! That sounds so much more challenging than a distance run, both mentally and physically.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations! It sounds like this was a great experience. And I can only imagine how exhausted I would be.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like an awesome time. I think it's hard for a lot of runners to slow down and shut their busy minds off, but we probably all need to do it more.
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