Mileage Possible Over
All Three Days: 60; on route: 56.8; in camp: 3.2; My actual mileage: 51.8
Day 0, November 17,
2011
Day 1, November 18,
2011
Mileage possible:
21.5, on route: 20.5, in camp: 1.0, My actual mileage: 21.5
Opening ceremonies is a relatively short presentation, but
very moving. I always have to get tissue
out. The new national spokesperson, Dr.
Sheri Phillips (pictured here), is an incredibly inspiring speaker. She clearly has a passion for this
cause. I got a high five from her on the
way out of the opening ceremony holding area.
It was awesome to see all the police officers out. San
Jose San Jose San Diego San Jose
I was scanned out onto the route right around 7:25 AM. I arrived at camp that afternoon at around
4:26 PM. We walked the full mileage for
the day, which was 20.5, so we were out on the route for roughly 9 hours. It was an easier first day than last year
(you can read my write up of last year, which goes into a lot more detail about
the setup of the event, how things run, and what the route is like at http://margiesmagentamiles.blogspot.com/2011/01/susan-g-komen-san-diego-3-day-walk.html). I put the walking feeling easier down
partially to the fact that I was able to train more and that I was in better
shape this year than I was last year.
Some of it is probably that I knew what to expect as well.
I know part of it is because of my awesome teammate. I cannot express how valuable it was to have Nancy Nancy
One thing that was kind of cool was that people recognized
my hat. Several walkers stopped me at
various points throughout the weekend to thank me for the write up I did of my
first walk, and many of them told me that they passed my blog on to all their
teammates. It felt good to know that my
experience had helped them be more prepared for their walks.
We saw a lot of the same people as I saw last year out
cheering us on. Smile Guy and Little
Grin were seen several times each day. The woman in her convertible who wore a pink
fuzzy coat last year was out there. The
gentleman with crazy clothing and a pink beard was out with his pink buffont-haired
ladies. The guys wearing bras with small
watermelons in them were there. The
Barbie Twins were there. And many, many
others. There were some young teenage
boys wearing bras. There was a woman
dressed as Princess Leia (one of my personal favorites). There was a pregnant woman with a hole cut in
her shirt so her big belly stuck out, and she painted different saying on her
belly each day of the walk. There were
families out with their kids. Lots of Girl
Scout troops provided treats, or drinks, or coffee. I wish I could list them all. The supporters on this walk are as much a
part of it as the walkers and crew are.
I can’t imagine doing the walk without them there to cheer me on.
I did not see and very much missed the older couple (I
always picture them in green) from last year who just stood by the route and quietly
said thank you to us as we passed. I had
hoped to be able to stop and tell them how much they had meant to me last
year. I get weepy wondering what their
connection to the event is and why they were not there this year.
It was wonderful having my phone in a little pouch around my
neck that kept it easy to access. A big
thanks to my best friend (who also happens to be my sister-in-law) for making
it for me. It made it easy to get it out
to update our progress and keep everyone in Facebook-land appraised of where we
were and how we were doing. I set up the
phone to receive the Facebook comments that people left and that was incredibly
valuable! It was like having my own
personal cheering squad of all of the people who mean the most to me in my pocket.
I figured out how to manage the downhills this year so they
were not so hard on me. It took a lot of
concentration, but basically involved adjusting so that I could still put my
heel down first and then roll from my heel to the ball of my foot with each
step. Last year, I mostly did downhill
on the balls of my feet which was super hard on my knees and my feet. It made a huge difference to concentrate on
that stride.
We stopped for lunch and then kept going. The 20.5 miles was long, but didn’t seem so
hard this year. It was the longest walk
I’ve ever done and I actually felt pretty good at the end of it!
When we got back to camp, we set up our tent, got our gear
in it and then headed over to the showers in semi-trucks. A hot shower is still one of the highlights
of the day after the walking. We visited
the village, went to dinner, got our stuff organized for the next day and
pretty much called it a night.
Mileage possible: 20.8, on
route: 19.6, in camp: 1.2, My actual mileage: 12.6
We got up and headed over to have breakfast. Last year, they had sodas (including my
morning drink of choice, diet Coke) available at breakfast. This year they
didn’t. Had I known, I would have saved
a diet Coke from the evening to have with breakfast. I had coffee for my morning caffeine
infusion. Breakfast was yummy. Of course, food in general is yummy when
you’re walking 20 miles in a single day.
I’m always impressed that they can feed so many people with pretty high
quality food.
We hit the route a little after 6:45 AM and within just a
little while, I was feeling a lot of pain in the soles of my feet. I hoped that walking would ease it, but it
started getting worse. I was kind of
slow going for the first several miles.
Finally, when I hit 5.3 miles at one of the Grab and Go’s I decided that
I needed a break. So I jumped on the
“Boobie Lift” sweep van which took me the next 2.2 miles to the next Pit Stop. Nancy
As I waited, I discovered that I’d lost my camera. I was pretty bummed, but figured the most
likely scenario was that it had been left in the Sweep Van. So I got someone in one of the other vans to
radio to “Boobie Lift” to check and see if it was there, and it was! I was so relieved. They were on their way back, so I waited and
thanked them all profusely for delivering my camera to me. It wasn’t too long after that when Nancy
One of the most moving moments
for me in this year’s walk happened at one of the cheering stations before
lunch. There was one lone woman standing
on the side of the route. She wore a
baseball cap and I could tell she had no hair under her hat. As I passed by, she reached out, took my hand
in both of hers, looked deep into my eyes and just quietly said “Thank you for
walking.” Tears fell down my face for a
while after that.
Got to lunch around 2:00 PM (13.6 miles along the route) and
we decided to take the SAG bus back to camp, skipping the last 6 miles. The total mileage that I skipped on day two
was 8.2.
Another semi-truck shower and a lot of stretching and
resting is how we spent most of the afternoon.
Eventually we went to dinner. We
realized that the weather report was calling for rain on Sunday --- which is
way better than last year’s downpour – at least the camping part would be over
and at the end of Sunday a hotel room or home is where we’d be able to warm up
and rest. I repacked things a little bit
to keep electronic items safe from the water and to take a few more of the
things I’d need for rain in my pack that I carry with me. Felt really good for having taken some time
off during the afternoon and I was feeling rested and ready to face day 3!
Day 3, November 20,
2011
Mileage possible: 17.7, on route: 16.7, in camp: 1.0, My actual
mileage: 17.7
We awoke at 5:40 AM to the sound
of rain on the tent. We got dressed and
packed the last of our stuff up and then started to dismantle the tent. Luckily it had stopped raining while we did
that and we got our gear and tent turned in and headed to breakfast.
We found some seats and sat down
to eat and after a little bit, a woman who was sitting a few seats down and
across from me asked “Is your name Margie?”
I smiled and answered yes. She
probably recognized my hat. Well, it was
the hat that helped her recognize me, but it was more than that. Turns out that she knows a very good friend
of mine named Caroline. Laurie and I took
a couple pics together to be able to post for Caroline to see. Of the 3,600-ish walkers that were there,
what were the odds that the only two women Caroline knew who were walking the San Diego
We got out onto the route around
7:15-ish and while a little stiff, I felt pretty good. Much better than I had felt on day 2 at the
beginning of the day. Within a short
period of time, it started raining. Not
a lot, not really heavy, but enough that I wondered how cold and wet the day
might be. It let up relatively quickly
and we made good time and were in very good spirits.
I knew this time to limit my
drinks on the 4 mile stretch that they have right before the big hill in old
town. So it was a much more pleasant day
for me than the previous year when I needed a restroom so badly. I had promised my son that I would do the
final hill on day 3, and I was actually feeling pretty good. Nancy Nancy
We had a relatively uneventful
day and it was such a different experience doing that last day with a positive
mood rather than the miserable one I had last year. We were making good time, so we stopped at a
café for lunch and had some sandwiches and used a real flushing toilet.
We made it to holding around
3:40 PM (according to my tweets) and this time the gauntlet of people cheering
us on as we entered was welcome and not painful for me.
We picked up our shirts, found a
place to sit and just relaxed for a little while. I took off my shoes and just rested my feet
on the cold concrete. It felt almost as
good as ice packs on my sore feet.
Around 4 pm it started to lightly rain.
We got our rain ponchos out and moved to a covered area. It was almost time to head out for the
closing ceremonies so we made one last pit stop at the real bathrooms in the
stadium and then joined everyone to the short walk to closing.
The closing ceremony was
moving. Again I was impressed at the
passion with which Sheri Philips spoke.
We learned that 9.2 million dollars were raised. I heard from someone that we had roughly
3,600 walkers (down 400 from the previous year). We raised our shoes in salute as the survivors
joined us and there were lots of people with tissues out.
It started to rain in earnest as
we walked across to where the buses were.
We found our luggage and carried it to the bus. We got on and it really started pouring. Once we got to long term parking, we got
drenched as we took our bags to the cars, Nancy and I gave each other one final
hug in the pouring rain, and then we each drove off. She actually drove all the way home. I stayed in a hotel overnight to relax and
recover before driving home the next morning.
As always, no write up of the
3-Day would be complete without giving a hearty round of applause to the
volunteer crew. They clean, they cook, they
serve, they drive, they make sure the walkers are well taken care of, safe and
healthy. They get up before the walkers
and they go to bed after us. The event
could not happen without their dedication.
Overall, it was a good
experience this year. Far fewer really
down times. I like to think that’s
because I was in better shape, but it could have been lack of being soaking wet
and so many other things. I’m just glad
to report that I liked it enough to sign up for 2012!
Yup, I am walking again in
November 2012. However, this will be the
first year I will be walking without a teammate. I hope that the lessons I learned with Joanne
in my first year and with Nancy
You can view all my photos of the 2011 event online at this link
If you would like to donate to
my walk this year, please go to my donation page
and click on the “Donate to Margie
in 2012” button!
