The opening ceremonies were pretty neat. The lady from Susan G Komen sounds like a preacher (in a cool, inspiring kind of way). We were standing towards the front, but somehow we were some of the last people out of the gate. We hit the first pit stop and I grabbed a couple snacks, and that foreshadowed the gorge fest that was about to follow! We all ate way too much the first day since we were pretty bored and the food was free. My favorite was these graham cracker sandwiches - 2 graham crackers with PB&J in the middle. Nom nom nom. We didn't realize that the "60 mile walk" was actually 17 miles on Day 1, 21.3 miles on Day 2, and 15.2 miles on Day 3. So that was a nice little surprise (but don't tell anyone). The walk took a very long time. I wasn't expecting the amount of congestion from walking on the sidewalk and stopping at the lights. Plus we took long breaks at the pit stops and at lunch. We started around 8:30 am and got done at 4:30 pm. I ended up walking with my two BFFs (Stacy and Shawna), and two of Shawna's friends (Sarah and Elizabeth) that I hadn't met before. The five of us had an amazing time together, and I made two new (and super!) friends.
After the walk, we pitched our tents (fortunately our neighbor was a pro, and she helped us out), showered in the trailers, and ate some dinner (which was surprisingly tasty). I didn't need the huge piece of carrot cake that I shoved in my pie hole, but yummmmmmm. After dinner we walked over to the Doubletree across the street and had some much needed drinks and relaxation. We may or may not have passed a bottle of Bailey's around our circle of 5 girls sitting inside a tent designed for 2 people.
We made the decision on Friday night that we would stay at the Doubletree the next night. I made the mistake of not bringing an air matress, and I didn't sleep well the first night. Plus my tummy was so upset with me after consuming mass quantities of processed food. We got up on Saturday morning and intended on getting to the starting line early, but we ended up standing in line and not starting until about 8:30 am. This was our big day (21.3 miles), so we tried to take shorter breaks so we wouldn't get done super late. We finished around 5:30 pm.
It was a long day, but we were over the hump and we had a nice night at the Doubletree to look forward to. We ordered takeout food - pizza and a salad - and watched some college football at the bar. It was so much nicer to sleep in a bed... glorious, glorious bed. On the third day we took a shuttle to Ursaline Academy and walked to Fair Park. We were on one of the first shuttles, and it made a HUGE difference starting early. We breezed through the miles. We treated ourselves to lunch at the House of Blues... we couldn't stomach another Panera sandwich, and we were ready to celebrate.
We had about 4 or 5 miles to go after that. We made another unofficial pit stop at a bar about a mile from the finish line for a celebratory pink shot. So we were feeling no pain at the finish line.
Somehow Shawna ended up getting interviewed by the CBS News (it was on TV that night at 10:30 pm) and we all jumped in.
Check it out!
http://video.ak.fbcdn.net/cfs-
Some of our friends met up with us at the finish line and we had a champagne celebration in the parking lot while we waited for the closing ceremonies to start. The closing ceremonies was the most emotional part of the weekend. Maybe that's because we had walked (nearly) 60 miles and we hadn't slept much ;) They did a great job honoring the survivors. The Ta Ta Girls got together for one more team photo.
I went into this not knowing what to expect. Walking with Stacy, Shawna, Elizabeth, and Sarah made the weekend so incredible. We thought about ways to make this better next year, and it sounds like we will be repeat walkers!
A few lessons learned:
-It's totally worth it to stay in a hotel. I know camping is "part of the experience," but I'm all about being comfortable and having a good night's sleep. It was only $89 at the Doubletree... such a steal (especially with 5 of us in the room!).
-Get to the front of the starting line or it's a L-O-N-G day!
-Don't continuously stuff your face. Try to take breaks between the stuffing, just so it's not continuous ;)
-Find awesome girls to walk with. This made the walk infinitely better!
-Have some awesome flair. I looked pretty lame in comparison to some of these super spirited girls.
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