This morning I sit here with aching legs and tingling feet to report that I MADE it through the entire 60km Weekend to End Breast Cancer this weekend. I underestimated how difficult it was going to be. After all- how hard can walking be, right? (shaking my head at myself right now) It was HARD, but as I kept reminding myself all weekend- it was not nearly as hard as fighting cancer would be. There were women walking who are going through that fight right now and they did it, so there was no way I was giving up if my legs were still moving. Let me tell you, it was very tempting to jump onto one of the sweep vans and be carried in comfort to the next pit stop!

I should start at the beginning though. Back in February, I signed up for the walk. I was intimidated by the idea of trying to raise $2000 at first, but in the end I raised a total of $2985. The biggest event was the massive garage sale we held at the end of March. I collected items for 6 weeks by advertising for donations on Craigslist. My garage was packed with stuff. I learned a lot that weekend about garage sales, including the 2 most important:  #1 ONLY collect items in very good condition- forget the junk! #2 Get lots of HELP!

The great news is that I raised $1700 that day, so all the hard work was worth it. Besides that, I held auctions on the blog for donated items. Most came from fellow Etsy sellers. I also made homemade marshmallow s’mores and chocolate covered oreo cookies and sold them at work and at my son’s spring hockey tournament.

I was so impressed to find out that there were 1300 walkers taking part, including many cancer survivors. There were volunteers in the form of cheerleaders, sweep van drivers, crossing guards, medical staff, and the folks who met us at every pit stop with treats, water and gatorade. One of the crossing guards shaved his hair into the shape of the awareness ribbon on the sides and dyed it pink–that’s commitment! Wish I’d gotten a photo of him. The cheerleaders were wonderful. They decorated their cars and honked at us  and cheered us along the route, and then stopped and played great dance music, danced and waved pom-poms or gave us little treats as we walked by. They kept us smiling the whole way. Here is a shot of some of the walkers along the seawall (look close, they are tiny!)

The first day, we walked 35km with a 45 minute lunch break. I was able to get a turn with a massage therapist at the lunch stop to pull some of the tightness out of my lower back. I had strained my back doing gardening about a week before so I was really worried about it holding out all weekend. Saturday I had real trouble with it, but between taking Advil and stretching it as often as I could– I got through it, but those last 5km were pretty painful. I was thrilled to find that I ended up blister-free at the end of day one. I had taken some good advice and slathered my feet with vaseline under my cool-max socks, changing to a new pair at lunch time.  I think doing that and having the great new running shoes saved my feet. I felt so badly for all the walkers I saw getting their feet bandaged and taped at the pit stops. Some of them had to stop walking due to the pain. Here is one of the volunteer’s decorated scooters.  That’s a balloon-filled bra on the front!

All along the route people came out of their homes and clapped for us, some yelling things like “thank you for walking!” “way to go!” “you can do it!” A family on E 37th (I checked so I could blog it) had a table set up outside their house where they served us an array of snacks and drinks as we went by. Two little girls stood on their front step and cheered “2-4-6-8, who do we appreciate? The walkers, the walkers, yeay!” and they jumped up and down and waved pom-poms for us. They were so cute- we all clapped and thanked them as we went by. One woman had a sign on the tree outside her house that said “You are walking for me. Thank you!” and she sat on her porch with her partner and they thanked every walker as they went by. Cars honked and waved at us all day long. People called out encouragement from their car windows. It was so nice to see strangers smiling so much! Some kids at Kits beach stood with buckets of mini chocolate bars handing them out to us as we went by and calling out “thank you for walking”. It really was an incredible experience.

Back at camp in the evening (after completing 35 km) I just wanted to get to my tent and collapse, but I’m so glad my friend Deb stopped me. She said if we stayed moving and even…gasp…danced for a while after dinner it would prevent us getting too stiff for Sunday’s walk.  Deb is a veteran of the walk- she’s done it 5 or 6 years now so figured she should know, but at that point I really couldn’t imagine dancing for 5 minutes- let alone walking another 25 km the next day. The lower half of my body felt like I’d been chewed up and spit out. I was really regretting the fact that I hadn’t done more training…not to mention the extra 20 lbs I’ve been carrying around for a while now. For at least the past year I just haven’t been motivated to work out. This walk really made me realize how much I’ve missed being fit. Once I recover I’m determined to get back into a fitness routine and shed these nasty pounds. Life is too short to feel uncomfortable in my body! Anyway- After hitting the showers (OH YES- that felt GOOD) we had dinner,  drank the champagne brought by Deb’s family and listened to a few speeches, then Bif Naked took the stage for a few songs. I have to admit I missed most of her set because I was arranging my nest in the tent. Then there was a DJ and dancing. I was amazed that I had any energy left, but we danced for about an hour! I finally hit my tent around 9:30 pm and with my earplugs firmly in place I slept solidly till about 4:00 am.  I was lucky to end up with a tent all to myself. Normally it’s two in each tent, but Deb and her family stayed in a nearby hotel, so I was able to spread out and enjoy a little extra space. I had to get up at 4:00 to visit the ’sanctuary’  (as it was so delicately referred to) and I nearly fell over when I stood up- my legs were so stiff I had to grab the tent for support.

Sunday started with a nice hot breakfast (well, the eggs were a little scary, but the rest was nice:-) and the coffee was wonderful. We got out on the route by 7:45 am. My back was much better on Sunday, but the muscles in the back of my right leg started getting pretty tight and then by the time we stopped for an early lunch around 10:40 I found two small blisters-one on each foot. I was hoping to make it all the way blister-free, but it was not to be! (hey-I made a rhyme:-) A very helpful medic taped up my blisters and we were back on our way. The second half of Sunday was very difficult for me. Every step was painful and I had to stop and stretch at least every 30 minutes to keep moving. The route was beautiful though. We finished up by walking the south side of the seawall around False Creek. I dropped behind my group and had to take it slower, but I was able to catch up before the finish line and we all crossed together. What a wonderful welcome we got with cheering and high-fives galore. It was such a relief to know it was over!

I met these two ladies at the closing ceremonies. They appeared to be mother and daughter.  Mom is a cancer survivor as you can tell by her t-shirt slogan. Love their senses of humor! IF you can’t make out the text, the mom’s shirt says “Yes, they’re fake! My real ones tried to kill me!” and the daughter’s shirt says “No, they are not fake. Do you really think I would pick THIS size?”

I’m proud of myself for making it through, and I’m already thinking of ideas to fundraise for 2010. Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who supported me – the money, your time, all your blog comments and good wishes,  your tweets and re-tweets, and all the great handmade products I was able to offer for auction. A special thank you goes to my husband Jon who supported me with my fundraising efforts and saved my ASS on garage sale day. You rock sweetie! Think of all the lovely breasts you helped to save :-0

This year’s event raised about 2.9 MILLION dollars to benefit the BC Cancer Foundation for womens’ cancers. Pretty impressive!

Next year, the name of the walk will be changed to The Weekend To End Womens’ Cancers. The scope of the funding is being spread to include all cancers that affect women.  I hope I can inspire more walkers to join in next year. We need as many as we can get. It’s a great experience and a chance to be part of a cure for cancer- how cool is that?  Grab a friend (or a bunch of friends and start your own team) and sign up for next year’s walk.  You won’t regret it- I promise you.