FINALLY, huh? Meh. It’s a long post and I wouldn’t blame you if you skimmed it. But the end is worth it because there’s a story about a gun. And my toe. Those stories are not related.
I’ll take my emailed updates and add the supplemental details – the things that I did not have the time or battery power to type.
DAY ONE
From Karen 11/07/2008 @ 7:26 AM
We’re here at south fork ranch in parker, tx where they filmed exterior shots for the show, dallas. Maybe jr is here, getting shot. There are a few thousand walkers here and we are ready to rock! Opening ceremony will start soon. This is where we warm up, get ready, and think of the reason for our journey. Ok, fingers are cold and the ceremony is starting!
My poor father. He had to wake up at 3:30 am that Friday in order to drive us (and one of his grad students and her friend) to Southfork Ranch, which was about 90 minutes away. He also had to sit in traffic on the single lane road outside of the ranch. Dad HATES traffic. But I think he was also amazed that there were so many people driving to the ranch to participate in this crazy event.
At opening ceremony, they had a wall where you could write what your goal was for the 3-Day.
Opening ceremony began as the sun rose from the horizon. In the ceremony, a group of people gather on the stage and each hold a banner. Each banner shows who we are walking for – My Wife, My Mother, My Daughter, My Grandmother, My Sister, My Aunt, My Husband, Myself, My Future. During the next three days, the banners will be passed along to different walkers, in the hopes that every walker gets to carry the banner at some point. There are also banners displaying the emotions and qualities of a 3-Day Walker.
These banners are carried into what’s called the Survivor’s Circle. Here, a small group of survivors gather, hold hands, and start the walk. As the ceremony ends, U2’s “Beautiful Day” plays.
Here, a small group of survivors gather, hold hands, and start the walk. As the ceremony ends, U2’s “Beautiful Day” plays.
From Karen 11/07/2008 @8:09 AM
Opening ceremony is done and everyone is crying – it’s going to be a beautiful day. Time to go – it’s time to walk!
From Karen 11/07/2008 @8:11 AM
Holy crap! As we are walking out they are playing the theme song from Dallas! AWESOME
Seriously, I freaking LOVED “Dallas” when I was younger. There were so many walkers ahead of us that it took Pizza and me about 20 minutes to actually cross the starting line. By this time, they had played several more songs and actually were playing the Dallas theme song again as we were walking off the ranch.
It was beautiful and COLD. The walk started when it was in the mid-40s, and the temperature would only get up to the low 70’s each day. Perfect walking weather! The morning route took us through some expensive residential areas. It was nice for checking out homes, but too quiet. We wanted some cheering stations and honking horns! Luckily, we had sweep vans coming by to cheer us on.
There was also a few groups of spectators who followed walkers along on the route – driving ahead to various intersections to cheer on walkers, then driving ahead to the next intersection to cheer, and so on. This is where you would see homemade signs held by children that said “Thanks for walking for my mom”. One man had a shirt that said “My wife was my hero, now you are too!” There was also a lovely older woman who was wither her children and grandchildren. She wore bright red lipstick, big glasses, and just cheered us by yelling “ARRIBA! ARRIBA!!” Pretty much the cutest woman ever.
LOVED HER. That picture was taken on the third day, but I couldn’t wait to put it in the post.
From Karen 11/07/2008 @ 11:19 AM
I THOUGHT TEXAS WAS FLAT, WHAT’S THIS HILL ALL ABOUT? First quick stop. A full rest stop (where I was last email) has bathrooms, food, beverages and a medical tent. Quick stops have beverages and bathrooms only. Now headed to the next stop. 6.4 miles down!
Pizza and I were playing the Celebrity Initials game. This is the game where you show off your knowledge of pop culture by naming random celebrities to match their initials. For example, if I started the game by saying “Alec Baldwin”, you could say “Betty White”. And I would have to have a celebrity whose first name started with W. And so on. Pizza and I once made this game last for 9 days. We figured that we would have no problem using it to keep us occupied during the three days. But we actually got bored with it quickly and abandoned it after a couple of hours.
From Karen 11/07/2008 @ 12:02 PM
Rest stop 2 – playing kanye west and beyonce! Just talked to a walker who is 6 months pregnant and walking for her mom.
I almost did not tell people about the pregnant walker. Not because it’s not AMAZING that she (and two other pregnant women I saw) did the walk. But because I don’t want Erik to remember her when I am pregnant and claiming that I simply CAN NOT get off the couch, or the baby will be pissed.
From Karen 11/07/2008 @ 1:33 PM
Things are running behind – it’s 12:30 and the lunch stop is scheduled to close. But there are a couple thousand of us still waiting in line for lunch. They asked us to grab the lunch and take it to the next pit stop which is 1.6 miles away. Met a woman who is walking to teach her students about way to help others. She seems like the kind of teacher that her students will always remember.
Around this time, we met with a walker named Terry. She’s a 7th grade teacher in Texas, and was doing the walk to teach her students about charity and doing things for other people. In addition to the walk, she grew her hair and then donated it for Locks of Love. Terry was lovely and walked with us for the rest of the day. This is important later on.
I was asked, why was the lunch running behind? And well, it was running a bit behind, which happens at these events. But also we (Pizza and I) were slowly moving towards the back of the pack, but not on purpose. We discovered this later.
From Karen 11/07/2008 @ 2:27 PM
No time for a full update – pit stop about to close and they’ll make stragglers ride the bus to camp. But we’re at 13.1 miles – 8.1 to go until camp!
We were determined not to “get swept”, which is what it is called when you can’t finish the walk or are too slow. When this happens, the sweep vans or the bus takes you to camp. The route closes at sunset, so they have timed when walkers must be through each rest stop in order for them to have time to finish. We were cutting it close at some stops. By now, Pizza was starting to not feel well.
This was one of the best sights along the route. We passed by a preschool where the kids lined up along their recess area and gave high fives to every walker. Naturally, the girls were on one side and the boys were on another.
From Karen 11/07/2008 @ 3:28 PM
At pit stop 4 and going strong. We’ve gone 15.5 miles and have less than 6 to go. Things have been running slow due to the traffic delays along the route. But I feel confident we can finish in time today. They are hurrying us because the route closes at sunset, which is in a few hours. Thanks everyone for your replies! I can’t respond yet since we’re rushing but I love reading them.
We had to sit here for a while, as Pizza’s heart rate was very rapid and she was not feeling well. We sat for a bit until she was feeling better, but her heart was still beating very fast. But as she said, she did not come all this way to not do the walk. As we exited, I picked up one of the banners and posed for a picture with it.
Terry, our teacher buddy took this picture. We left the pitstop and got maybe 500 feet along the route when Pizza got sick. She was suddenly very weak and dizzy, and as she stopped her leg muscles all began to cramp up severely. We got her on the ground and began to massage her leg muscles and calm her down while Terry rushed back to the pit stop to get help. Pizza decided she would need a sweep van to take her ahead to camp. When I left her, she insisted that I finish the walk and she would see me at camp. Terry said she would walk with me the rest of the way. We were now REALLY behind and had to walk very fast in order to avoid being swept.
A couple of miles after we left Pizza, I saw an ambulance rushing by and hoped it was not for my friend. Then, a phone call. It was Pizza from the ambulance, saying she was being taken to the hospital because her heart rate was sky high. Ever the optimist, she said she believed that she’d be discharged soon and allowed to continue with the walk. I was not so sure.
Over the last few miles, I did not have time to send updates as I had to RUSH through each pit stop in order to get out in time. I also had to step off the route several times in order to answer phone calls from Pizza regarding her progress, the doctor’s final decision that she could NOT continue with the walk or stay at camp without jeopardizing her health, and from my Dad who heroically offered to drive the two hours in rush hour traffic to Dallas to get her from the hospital and take her to his home in Fort Worth. (Remember, this is after he woke up at 3:30 am to drive us TO Dallas).
rom Karen 11/07/2008 @ 6:48 PM
What a difference a few hours makes. My walking partner/tent mate/best friend is out. She caught a bad cold two days ago and still walked. Unfortunately, the walk took it out of her and she had to go to the ER. She got a clean bill of health, but can not finish the 3 day. She worked so hard, training and raising $2500 for the event, only to be stopped in day one. This event can be heartbreaking to those unable to finish, and my heart is broken for her. I finished the first day and because of the delays I was the last one to camp. The sun was setting and I still had to pitch the tent. A crew member came over, saw that I was alone and pitched the tent for me. The girls in the next tent over inflated my air mattress for me. Then I took a shower and cried. I am now going to get dinner and then go to sleep. Tomorrow I walk without my best friend, but I do not walk alone.
I really can not emphasize how wonderful that crew member and the girls in the neighboring tent were. When I walked across the finish line for day 1, I had maybe 15 minutes of daylight left. I was in a lot of pain from speedwalking the last several miles, sad because I missed Pizza, scared because I did not know how to continue the walk alone, and just plain exhausted. I do not know what i would have done without the crew member and the other girls.
Terry and I split up and said we would meet at dinner after we got cleaned up. Unfortunately, I lost her in the sea of 3,400 people and did not see her for the rest of the walk.
DAY TWO
I spent most of the morning at breakfast looking for Terry. No luck. Luckily, I met two very nice women at breakfast who offered to join me on the route.
From Karen 11/08/2008 @ 7:55 AM
Good morning! I have coffee in me and the route is open. I want to get started asap so I have more time at camp tonight. I’m surprisingly not that sore today so that is a good sign. Today we are walking 20.7 miles, so not quite as long as yesterday. I’m Keeping a positive attitude. Thanks everyone for your kind emails last night. Today I will take a lot of pictures!
Yeah, I meant to take a lot of pictures. But I only took some at lunch and then at camp that night. Oops.
From Karen 11/08/2008 @ 9:25 AM
First pit stop, 3.2 miles down. Met up with some ladies who offered to walk with me so I can also enjoy good conversation. Feeling good so far and the weather is gorgeous.
The ladies I met were local to the area so they could give me a bit of a guided tour along the walk. They were about my age, and old friends doing the walk together. Their names were Mariah and Birgitte.
From Karen 11/08/2008 @ 10:39 AM
Pit stop 2 and 6.5 miles down! A mile earlier there was a cheering
station where family and friends come out to cheer on the walkers. One
woman was proudly showing her bald head and shaking everyone’s hand
to say, “thank you for walking for me”
The cheering stations were great. Even if you did not have any friends or family there cheering for you, you had hundreds of people cheering for you and giving you high fives. Many survivors came out to personally thank and cheer on the walkers.
From Karen 11/08/2008 @ 12:19 PM
Lunch time! 11.2 miles down, we are over halfway done for the day and the event. I have 3 blisters forming so I am taking care of those with supplies in my pack. The line for the medical tent looks very long so it’s good to know how to take care of blisters and basic first aid.
Lunch is chicken teriyaki wrap, fruit and chips. Talk to you at the next stop.
Lunch was at a nature reserve, right in their parking lot. It was a beautiful sight being surrounded by trees, but it also meant that we were surrounded by bugs. Mariah is HIGHLY allergic to bees. It was pretty dicey when she had two bees on her – one on her hand, the other on her foot and trying to walk up her pant leg. Luckily, they finally flew off and we took that as our cue to walk on.
Not long after lunch, we passed another cheering station where Mariah’s husband and daughter were waiting. As we stopped to talk to them on a hill, Birgitte’s knee started to hurt – a LOT. She limped to the next rest stop, only a couple of miles away.
From Karen 11/08/2008 @ 3:00 pm
Another pit stop and only 3.6 miles until camp. I AM HURTING. My legs,
shins, feet are sore to the bone. Another person I was walking with
just needed a sweep van – am I a jinx?
Mariah and I were now walking together, each of us walking without the person we had started with. Funny how that works out. When we got to camp, Birgitte told us that the doctor at camp told her she could not continue the walk due to a bad knee injury that likely will require surgery.
From Karen 11/08/2008 @ 4:36 pm
Day 2 done! I have now walked 41.9 miles. I have 5 blisters and am now
lying in my tent summoning the will to go shower. HURTING A LOT
Day 2 is always the hardest day, both physically and emotionally. I was in an incredible amount of pain, and just wanted to go home. I took this picture to show what you feels like to be two days in to the 3-Day.
Not my best look. And this is after a nice, refreshing shower.
DAY THREE
Day 3 is when the end is in sight. You can push through the pain and the blisters and the fatigue because you know that you will sleep in a real bed that night, and use a real bathroom.
From Karen 11/09/2008 @ 7:34 AM
Good morning! It’s day 3 and the end is in sight. I have to be light on updates today because my phone battery is low so don’t worry if you don’t hear from me. If the phone dies before the last update I will send it from my dad’s house tonight. My blisters hurt and my legs are sore and we have to average 3 miles an hour to make it to closing in time. But I am ready to rock!
The route opened at dawn, and Mariah and I left right away. We had a ton of energy at first, so we walked fast and decided to move fast in case we slowed down later. Which we did.
The most amazing sight I saw on the 3-Day was a four person team of women, one of which was in a wheelchair. On the wheelchair was a sign: “This is my 3rd 3-Day and my 2nd remission of breast cancer. My doctor told me that the only way I would cross the finish line for this walk is in a wheelchair. So my friends are pushing me across.” People, imagine not only walking 60 miles, but doing it while pushing a wheelchair across hills and curbs and rocks and potholes and gravel paths. It was an amazing sight.
From Karen 11/09/2008 @ 11:38 Am
At lunch – done 9.7 miles and over halfway to the finish! Just had my first stop at the medical tent. At mile 6, one of my blisters popped and it hurt a LOT. Now I am wrapped and ready to finish. I had a great pace in the morning but now need to walk slower. But I am ready for this walk to be OVER.
At lunch, one walker collapsed and had a seizure. Luckily, it was at a stop where there was a full medical team and an ambulance. The medical team jumped into action and the girl was taken care of while her team members held each other and cried.
After this, my updates were very light and most did not go through until hours later. This is what they said.
“4.9 more miles… 2nd blister popped…”
When a blister popped, it felt like I had just walked on bubble wrap and popped a big bubble. Then I had a few minutes of excruciating pain, and then relief from the lack of pressure. What I did not realize is that I still limped after the pain went away, and my legs were compensating for the change in my gait and footfall.
Mariah was hydrating a lot. A lot. So much so that a pit stop every hour was not enough for her. But when you gotta go, you gotta go. Even a true lady like Mariah will pee in a bush (twice) when it’s needed.
“Last pit stop before the finish! I’m really going to finish!!”
Up until that point, I really did not entirely believe I would finish. I guess because when I had envisioned finishing this, it was also with Pizza. Without her here, finishing did not seem real.
The last mile is surreal. because the end is so close, and you reflect on everything that has brought you to this finish line. I thought of my husband, my mom, everyone who supported me, my Dad and Debbie, my family, Terry, Birgitte, Mariah, and Pizza.
You turn a corner, and then there’s the finish line, just past two large inflatable columns. Full of cheering friends and family, crew members and volunteers, and walkers who have finished ahead of you. There’s loud music and hundreds of smiling, cheering faces.
At the end, the volunteers scan your badge to show you have arrived at the finish line. I was so grateful to see them, I took their picture.
Then I went into the first port-a-jon and cried for ten minutes. After that, I went to the food station and ate three of EVERYTHING they had. I had not been very hungry on the walk, but I was suddenly starving.
“FINISHED. Now I sit until closing and it feels really good.”
Sitting felt good until you realized that you needed more water, or needed to pee AGAIN, and you had to get up. And then, it REALLY hurt.
Dad and Pizza came to closing, and were able to meet me in the “holding area” (past the finish line, where walkers stay and relax until closing ceremony). We made sure Pizza got a finisher’s T-shirt, and that she was going to walk into the closing ceremony side-by-side with me and the other walkers.
When it came time for closing, we gather into three groups: walkers, crew members, and survivors. Walkers go in first – lined up in rows of ten, arm-in-arm. We walked from closing to the Southern Methodist University campus, 0.8 miles away. As you walk into closing ceremony, and see hundreds if not thousands of people cheering for you… well. It’s an unforgettable and emotional sight. The feeling it gives you is one of the reasons why I did the walk again.
Walkers stand in front of the stage and take off their shoe to raise them in a salute to what has just been accomplished. Crew members then walk in, and we cheer them because the crew members are the best in the world. The survivors walk in last, and the ceremony officially begins.
The walkers who carried the “Who Are You Walking For?” banners at opening ceremony walk on stage with their banners. Then, they are joined by THEIR reason for walking. The woman carrying the banner for “My Mother” is joined on stage by her mother. The man with the banner for “My Wife” is joined by his wife and child. And so on, and so on. I really wish I could have taken a picture of this, but I was too busy sobbing uncontrollably. After this, the survivors from opening ceremony rejoin in the Survivor’s Circle with their banners, and raise a flag for what we all hope is in the very near future: a world without breast cancer.
And closing ceremony finishes, and it’s really emotional, and I know that my words could not possibly do it justice. So I’ll move on. After the ceremony concluded, Pizza and I met up with Dad and my sister Chrissy and made our way to the car.
Look how cute Chrissy is. Very soon, she’s going to be a doctor and have her hands all up inside someone’s diseased body and then save their life and she will still be adorable.
Here’s the thing I forgot to tell everybody! In the car, we had to wait half an hour to get the car out of the parking garage due to the traffic. Dad was on the verge of an anger stroke when we heard some shouting. From the safety of the car, we looked down the parking ramp and saw a walker step out of her car (she was a passenger, someone else was driving) to yell at the driver of another car. It seemed to be a dispute about allowing one of the cars to pull out, and I heard the walker yell “WE JUST WALKED 60 MILES, YOU (unintelligible)!’ And the other driver yelled something back. As the driver of the walker’s car got out of the car to see what was going on, the walker reached back into the car AND PULLED OUT A GUN, AND POINTED IT AT THE OTHER DRIVER. The other driver was smart and shut right up. That was also when the traffic mysteriously cleared and we were able to haul ass out of there before we got shot/on the news. All feelings of hope and goodwill and accomplishment from the 3-Day is no match for road rage, I guess.
The next day, Pizza and I flew back to Charlotte (we took the cheap upgrade to first class, thank you very much) and collapsed. And the remaining blister on my toe exploded into a mass of dark pink chewing gum/twisted flesh, and I took a picture of it. And I’ve enjoyed torturing people with it since. But Erik would be ticked off if I posted the picture here, so instead I present a link for those brave enough to view it.
Epilogue:
Pizza is fine, and I think we’ll do the 3-Day again sometime because she still needs to experience it all. My toe is all better. I stopped limping the day I got laid off. And the moral of the story is, NEVER cross a walker who has just suffered for 60 miles and has a weapon within reach.
OK, I couldn’t help myself and looked at the pictures. Yummy.
I read it all! And I’m busy, even!
Brought back great memories from when I did the MS150. Holy hell, getting on the bike the second day made my ass hurt.
AND, when you said “blister”, those pictures are NOT what I imagined. Yeow.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Happy Thanksgiving! SWEET blister pic. Made my toes hurt just looking at it.
As far as the gun story, all I could think was, meh, that’s Texas. I always got a kick out of the “no guns allowed” signs on the front doors of THE HOSPITAL. God Bless ‘Merica.
Nice work on the 3 Day!
Hospital, restaurants, BANKS, the no guns signs were everywhere. Except, apparently, in that parking lot.
Effing Tejas.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
Glad you got a truly Texan experience on your 3 Day.
Is it a bad sign for my three day that I cried when I read about yours? Sounds like a great amount of fun – I am already training!
Karen, I blogged about your 3-Day. http://tinyurl.com/5gudr4
Thanks again.