August 10, 2007: Report from the 3Day, Pt. 1

OK, so… complete failure.

I did not walk 60 miles.  I only walked 55 miles. 

I’M SORRY!!! Wah…

But I have an excuse! And I’ll tell you what it was presently… patience, patience. 

OK, here is the story of the 3Day:

I had been training a little bit on my own, as you know.  The absolute hardest part about that was finding the time to do it — who has six free hours to walk around? But I knew I had to find out if I could do it before I showed up because that’s a story that ends in tears.

So, I started doing some training walks with a group near me called The Sunflower Girls. The first time I went to meet them I got hopelessly lost (thank you, Mapquest!) and showed up at the walk leader’s house 40 minutes late.  Needless to say, no one was there. Lotsa empty cars, though, so I knew I was on the right track.

So I decided to stretch and start walking and maybe I could catch up with them. BAH! Ba HA HA HAH! Ha ha ha… haha… hoooo… that’s a good one. See, I had no idea what I was up against — I thought, hey, I’m in reasonable shape, I can walk fast, right? Yeah, but when I finally called Stacey to come rescue me and jump me ahead in the route (I figured, hey, I’m walking 60 miles, she can do something… oh, right. Chemo. Well, whatever…) and finally found this group and finally started walking, four of them shot ahead like Dunkin’ Donuts was callin’ their names! I mean, we like to never saw them again if they hadn’t waited up! Sheesh.  Then there were a few of us in the middle, and a couple behind.  But still, I never would have caught any of them.

Which would have been a complete shame, because the Sunflower Girls RULE! One of them, Brenda, actually lives right around the corner from me, who knew? (Right on, Brenda!)

So, right, training walks… We did 12 miles that day, no problem. The next day we did, uh, six miles. And then went to Sergio’s for a ridiculously caloric breakfast. So, I’m thinking, ok, I need to do at least one more big push before this gig to find out whether my feet are going to fall off. (Oh, and by the way, the surgerized foot by this time was pretty much pain-free. Huzzah!)

So the next day, I walked what we estimated to be about 15 miles.  I was going to do 4 or 5 more, but Chris called my cell phone to ask whether I wanted him to pick me up because he was heading home from his parents’ house. And I said “Yes, please,” because of the very biggest problem about walking long distances by yourself. And here it is. Ahem.

Walking long distences by yourself IS UNBELIEVABLY BORING! Sweet Fancy Moses, I thought I would never shut up! And those footsteps — left, right, left, right — I am so incredibly monotonous, I thought I was going to have to choke me!

So that’s why I highly recommend training with a group. Like the Sunfower Girls, who RULE! Because otherwise you will quickly bore yourself to tears. And plus you get to have breakfast at Sergio’s, which I recommend even more highly.

End of pt. 1 — next installation, the first day!

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