Well, I did it! 60 miles, well ok 54 miles in 3 Days. I had to take a "sweep"van for a few miles. This was the toughest of the walks I've done. If you've never done this type of walk, it's not only tough on the body but emotional as well. Let me see if I can give you a run down of my days.
I arrived on Thursday evening with Courtney. She was participating in her 9th walk, her 2nd this year. She'll be doing 3 total come Dallas. I aim to be like her and she's just twenty six. Our hosts Mark and LeeRoy were putting all eight of us up at their home. 7 Angels were walking this year with Reed doing "encouragement and nourishment". Mark prepared spaghetti to carb us up for the walk the next day.
Friday morning we woke up nice and early and prepared to ride the subway into Navy Yard to begin our walk at Nationals Park and 20.5 miles the first day. We saw some beautiful sights that day as we wound our way around the U.S. Capitol building, past the Smithsonian Museums and worked our way thru northwest Washington, DC into Bethesda. Reed was there to cheer us on as well as some people from the area. Jason, our team captain, become seriously ill about mile 5 and had to go home, Courtney being the Angel she was went with him. It was bad and that evening when we all arrived home, Jason was on his way to the hospital. It turned out he stayed two nights and was released Sunday to fly home. We still don't know if it was food poisoning or something viral. I say it was the egg thing he ate that morning. Just saying! That was the only item he ate the rest of us did not. We ordered Pizza that night and some of the team were determined not to walk the next day and went to bed early. But...
As my alarm went off at 6:30 Saturday morning and I climbed out of my sleeping bag to shut it off, my body aching and I said "oh no, I'm not walking". I descended the stairs down to the girls room and Shelva said "tj are you walking". I said "I think I can do 15 today". She said "I'm in" and Linda said "I'm in". I then went to tell Lorenzo, we were walking. Courtney was in and all 5 Angels were walking as Greg was at the hospital with Jason. The funny thing was I was the last to be ready. Reed came to me and said "are you ready". I growled at him and said "give me 5 minutes". I found out later that he came downstairs and said "she really needs 5 minutes". I was downstairs 5 minutes later. When I apologized later for being so grouchy at him, he laughed and said "the funny thing was, I took one look at you, hair all a mess, no makeup and I thought, she really does need more than 5 minutes". He was so sweet. This day was the toughest. The hills were bad. I'm talking busting your butt. Even marathon runners were having trouble with these hills. There were times that I found myself saying "tequila shot, tequila shot" all the way up a hill. Now, I don't drink much at all. I never did take a shot of tequila but for some reason that saying got me up many a hill. This was the day, I swept a bit. A sweep van is a van you can ride from one pit to another. I had blisters at one point that I had to see medical for. I've never had to do that. Normally, I can fix them myself, but these were bad on my soles. Both feet. I'm glad I went because the medic taught me what to do and we shared as to why we do these. We started the day in Bethesda and walked through Gaithersburg, MD on thru Blohm Park and finished back at camp that night. We walked thru tons of wooded areas and parks that day. That evening we headed to the hospital to see Jason before we headed "home". There Mark had prepared brisket and home made potato salad for us. Bed came pretty early after "popping blisters" and prepping feet and soaking bodies in tubs! BTW - did I say that this was a 23.5 day.
Sunday, last day of the walk. Reed and LeeRoy dropped us off at the starting point in North Bethesda. We would be walking the same route as we had walked on Friday. This would be a 16 mile day. We traveled past, the National Zoo, through Woodley Park and the cheering section at Dupont Circle. Now we stopped for lunch there and I had a weird thing happen. We were only about 4 miles from the end. We sat outside and listened to the cheering section and had brunch. I went inside to use the restroom and this woman asked me "when are you going to stop with all this mess and stop interrupting my day". Since I wasn't sure when the cheering was going to stop, I stated "I'm not sure". Now she's really starting to piss me off cause she's making this personal and I just look at her and say "when cancer is cured". I didn't notice that she had followed me outside but when I started to sit down she was right there and she looked at me and said "you need to work one on on with cancer survivors". I said "I am a cancer survivor". She must have had mental problems because she was wearing a wool coat and hat on a hot October day. I sat at the table and had a good cry because during the previous days, we really hadn't had that many people come out to cheer us on and it was so good to have so many come out on Sunday. I hope God finds a place for her. We finished our walk by going right by the White House on to the Reagan building to rest and we had our closing ceremony at the Washington Monument. We all went to eat at Linda's favorite place that evening.
Monday, we all packed and went in to Alexandar, VA for some sight seeing and then on to the airport to head home. Thank you for upgrades!
Now, some of my favorite memories from these days: On Friday, the woman in the car wearing the white headband that honked her horn and touched her heart to say, she was touched that we were walking. Bob, the Army vet, with his prosthetic leg, pushing his wheelchair sometimes and in it others but finishing all 60 miles. And at closing, taking off his leg to raise his shoe in honor of the survivors along with all of us. To the 23 year survivor that cheered us along and cried right along with us as she hugged us and said thank you to us. To the woman in the wheel chair that is dying of cancer that welcomed us home. To my teammates that took my hand, when I felt like I couldn't take another step and said "it's okay".
These walks may be difficult but so is fighting cancer. Sharla fought it to the bitter end. We laughed as we thought how she helped arrange the beautiful weather for us. We hope to have pictures up soon on sharlasangels.org. I'll do it again in Dallas in November. Seriously!
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