The Official "I Hate Cancer" Blog

bc3d 2010 - day three

the morning of day three found us lined up with the other 2,400 walkers waiting to exit camp and hit the trail.

we had to wait a long time.... can you find me waiting in line?  

(hint - i'm the one waving like a dork.)

day three was sunny.

sunny and hot.

there was not a lot of shade on day three.  just a lot of sun and a lot of soreness and a lot of putting one foot in front of the other.  over and over and over....

i didn't take a whole lot of pictures either (i was busy putting one foot in front of the other) until we reached the 5 mile mark.  then things started to look up.

"i squish your capitol!"

things seemed to become much more amusing the closer we got to the finish line...

here we are just a "mere" two miles (perhaps the *longest* two miles in the universe) from the capitol - you can see it, the tiny domed building at the far right of the photo.

we reached the under one mile point in downtown saint paul, and then the camera came out and we got a wee bit silly. 

 

one block away and we could see the capitol huge and looming right before us, like a beacon of hope... hope that one day, we could stop with the walking.

i told laura, "get in the picture and put your thumbs up!"  she told me she would put her thumb in the picture, but nothing else.... heh heh, 60 miles and 27 years, i know my limits :) so i present to you: laura's thumb is up - one block to go!

we reached the end and everyone cheered us and we were emotional and proud and then we just wanted to sit down and stop with the walking.  i'm not kidding - we were elated, but we were both in a lot of pain.

eventually we met up with our own personal cheering squad!

but honestly we were beat - we opted to skip walking in the closing ceremonies and just head for home.  the closing ceremonies are wonderful (and if you want to you can click here, here or here to see pictures from the 2008 ceremony) but the thought of doing extra walking was just too much for us to handle. 

forgive us our moment of weakness, but i feel like we earned it.

and to laura i would like to publicly say - my dear friend, thank you for making this horrific and marvelous journey with me.  thank you for helping me when i needed help, thank you for pushing me when i needed pushing.  27 years... and this may have been our hardest road yet.  i can think of no one i would rather have been with than you.  thank you laura, i love you!

and just get ready for "next time" because there will totally be a "next time."

bc3d 2010 - day two

15.1 out of 23.0 miles!

here we are at the start of day two!  we got away from camp a little later than we had hoped (i think it took me longer than i thought it would to wrap up my feet) so we spent the morning towards the back of the pack.

the route the second day followed much the same route as when we walked in 2008, so we were happy to find another of the twin cities annual fixtures - jody's couch - in the same scenic location as last time.

here's laura completely cracked up and loosing it.  you can decide for yourself if it's because i am that funny, or if she was just a little punchy from so many miles...

when we reached the day two lunch stop (at 11.4mi) my feet were crazy-hurting and i was having some major blister issues.  i decided to head over to the medical tent and have a professional look at them.

here i am getting some of my blisters lanced and both my feet professionally wrapped up by a very kind and talented nurse.  

please know how forced these big smiles are - i'm still getting my feet treated and laura was having major leg muscle cramping issues.  so when the walk staff arrived and said they were closing lunch down in 5 minutes and we had to either be on the trail by then or on a bus that would take us back to camp or drop us off at pit stop 5, the decision was not that hard to make.

we chose to take the bus to pit stop 5.  this cut about 8 miles out of the day's total but still gave us 3.7 miles to walk back to camp.  

and miracle of miracles, guess what we found upon our arrival at pit stop five?  the golden ticket of 3-day walkers snack food (and something i would never ever even consider eating in my normal life).... the beloved uncrustables.  

after enjoying our processed crustless-sandwiches laura decided that her legs had stiffened up too much after all the sitting and that she would get on the bus to head back to camp in the hopes that by not over-extending herself she would be able to do the whole day on sunday.  i though, didn't want my newly dressed feet to go to waste so i set off to do the last 3.7mi by myself.

it was a beautiful shady end to the day, walking along the gateway state trail.  i'm glad that i decided to keep walking, but i can tell you that the last mile of the day felt like the longest mile in the history of miles.  it was a very welcome site when i finally spied camp up ahead.

after a shower and dinner i was ready to relax a bit in our tent.  

what?!? of course i brought knitting - dishcloths, what else?  although i didn't knit too long, both laura and i were in bed sleeping before 8pm.

and thus ends day two.

bc3d 2010 - day one

20.3 out of 20.3 miles!

we had stayed thursday night in a hotel in the cities, so when we awoke early (5:30) on friday morning we were directly across the street from the opening ceremonies site.

we arrived 6:30-ish and wandered around soaking up the bc3d pre-walk excitement.

the opening ceremony did a wonderful job of both pumping us up for the three days to come while reminding us solemnly of why we were walking.  after being inspired, we all filed out and began the walk itself.

you can not imagine how supportive the people are, they line the trail at the cheering stations, but there are some who spend the entire three days following the walk route cheering us on as we go, their dedication to us is more helpful than i can say, encouraging us to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

there's a group of bikers who spend the three days driving along the trail, their bikes decked out in pink (a few of them wore bras on their heads), revving their motors and cheering us on.  they're an annual fixture of the twin cities walk, and all the walkers love them.)

ironic?  only time will tell...

the twin cities area is home to an amazing number of trails, the walk route is not lacking for scenic beauty.

after 10.9mi we reached the lunch stop.  we ate lunch (hummus and cucumber sandwiches - i eat vegetarian when i'm on the walk because mass produced meat scares me) i dressed a few early forming blisters, we both changed our socks, and just as we were starting out the skies opened and it began to rain.

we busted out our ponchos and just kept on walking.  i'm not sure how long it rained, maybe 30 minutes?  but it was long enough to get our feet very wet, making us rue the fact that we had only just changed into our spare socks... 

but eventually the rains subsided as we wound our way through downtown minneapolis and through the beautiful mill ruins park.

i spotted this awesome graffiti somewhere along a trail.  women walkers.  thats right baby.

the last pit stop of the day was at mile mark 18.3 and when we reached it i will admit to dragging more than just a bit.  i was keeping myself hydrated, but in retrospect had neglected to keep up with my salty snacks.  i was dizzy and nauseous, and once i sat down i honestly didn't know if i would get up again.  laura came to my rescue by going to the food tent and getting me a bag of potato chips.  after slowly eating them, and after a much needed pep talk from laura (thank you again laura!!) i felt strong enough to walk the final 1.9 miles of the day.

we spotted this guy as we were walking the last leg - click on the picture and make it very large so you can see his hair - he has a pink breast cancer ribbon shaved into his head!

when we reached the end point for the day i was so glad that i had pushed myself to finish the last few miles.  here we are goofing off a tiny bit before getting on the bus that would take us back to camp.

this is the walk up to camp - a most welcome site at the end of the day!

here's a shot of camp, taken from our tent.  when we arrived we got our gear, set up our tent, ate dinner, took a shower (in the awesome mobile semi truck showers), sacked out in our little pink tent, and slept like bricks until the morning.

and that's the end of day one.

crossed the finish line!

52 of 60 miles!  pow!  take that breast cancer!!

i'm back, and i've got blistered swollen painful feet.  but as they like to say on the walk, "your blisters will heal before her chemo is over."  it was a hard, hard three days, but i am proud of what i accomplished.

i need to sort through the rest of my photos, and then i'll be back with a full report of the event!

thank you all again for your encouragement and support, i really couldn't have done this without you!