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photos forthcoming, however…
By beth | May 5, 2008
I wanted to give you an update on the walk even though I don’t have any pictures to share yet.
First of all, I made a walking skirt, and I customized my Rack Pack shirt for Saturday’s walk, and no less than fifteen women stopped me to comment on one or the other. It was incredible. I had no idea it would get such a reaction. And apparently (I missed this comment, but Amaris heard it), one woman referred to me as being “fashion forward” and “very Project Runway.” Oh my my my…why thank you.
And now for the story of the walk…
When I signed up for this one, I had really high hopes of finishing the whole 39.3 miles (I only did 30 in Charlotte), but then the little punk just sort of snuck up on me, and I didn’t have the time or the energy to train like I ought to have done. Plus I doubted those “blister-free guaranteed” socks that Amaris spent $13 on, so I just had the regular kind, which were admittedly far superior to the socks I wore in Charlotte, but alas, by mile 21, I knew I was done for. I sat down and removed my moleskin, the nurse popped the one blister and re-covered it, then she poked around at the other, decided not to pop it and re-covered it, and the moment I stood up, I looked at Amaris and said, “I’m done.”
She said that she could also be done, so we got on the bus with the roughly thirty other walkers who were also tapped out. And as we rode to the finish line, watching the mile markers go by, we were more and more affirmed in our decision to let go of our pride and stop at 21 miles. It was getting late anyway, and we were slowing down, so I don’t think we would have been able to finish in time even if we had kept going, which was terribly confusing. I’m still rather baffled by it.
They have the route all laid out with stops every 2-3 miles, and there’s a certain time by which you need to be leaving each stop in order to finish the whole route before it closes. At the beginning of the walk, there were roughly 3,500 people trotting through the streets of downtown Washington, so it was understandable that our pace would be a little slow. And I think we were toward the rear of the pack. And it was downtown Washington, so we stopped in several places for photos and whatnot, so I was not at all surprised when we were late arriving to the first rest stop. We decided at that moment, though, to pick up the pace, which we did, and our time started to improve. A few stops later, we were actually about 15 minutes ahead of schedule, and even though we didn’t slow down at all, we just seemed to start getting to the stops later and later.
And THEN…oh it was awful, and this just makes no sense to me at all…between miles 16 and 21, there was ONE quick stop that was in a parking lot with NOwhere to sit down really or stretch and no shade, and then between miles 18 and 21, there was NOTHING. And I mean nothing except a water treatment plant and about 2 miles of uphill climb with trees on the left and a 2-lane road and trees on the right. There were no cheerleaders, no stops, no water, no cars driving by honking in support/appreciation/shock and surprise at a great pink mass of hot women walking by…nothing. Not even a 20-mile sign. And that was probably the greatest morale breaker of the day. We were walking up this hill thinking, Oh sweet and holy baby Jesus, this is the longest freaking mile I have ever walked in my life. Ever. Please, please, please, please, please just make it end, and make it end now. Take me home if you have to.
So we got to the top of the hill, and there was the 20-mile marker, and about a tenth of a mile later (no exaggeration), there was the 21-mile marker. I wanted to punch somebody. But then we were on the bus, and it didn’t really matter any more.
And thus ended the 2008 Washington, DC Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. I decided not to walk on Sunday because I learned my lesson in Charlotte about walking on blisters, and I was not about to relive that pain. So I told my pride to blow it out its old wazoo, and I gave my body a rest. I figured that given the amount of training I’d done, 21 miles was pretty respectable, and the DC walk had raised 8.1 million dollars, which is way more important than me trying to prove anything to myself.
Amaris did the 21 miles on Saturday and the whole 13 miles on Sunday. We’re not sure how, but I think her magic socks had something to do with it. Whitney was in some serious pain and stopped walking just before Amaris and I did on Saturday. She wanted to get to 20 miles, but since there wasn’t a sign, she didn’t know that she had reached 20 miles about half a mile earlier. She and I enjoyed a restful Sunday morning in the hotel, and then we hobbled around, packing up our stuff and Amaris’s stuff before hobbling to lunch at Baja Fresh with Richard, J.Beau and Lauren, who are all SO wonderful for coming up to support us (thanks buddies!! My awesome sister came to cheer us on too, but she had gone back to Maryland by this point, so we didn’t get to have lunch with her. She took some pictures, though, so hopefully she’ll share them with me so I can post them for you.).
Then I hobbled to my car and picked up Mrs. Emily (Furr) Hogan, from whose carriage house studio apartment I am writing at this moment. I have lots of fun things to share about my time with her, as well as fun things to share about the drive up to DC with Whitney, but those will have to wait for another post. Until then, I leave you with two words to ponder: stiff five.
Topics: fashion, friends, Family, Avon Walk, food |