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jayfurrIt's the morning of Day 2 at the 2010 Washington DC Susan G Komen For The Cure. Surprisingly, I feel pretty much okay. I say 'surprisingly' because yesterday was a frustrating day for me in which I started out walking at the back of the walker pack because I wanted to... and eventually found myself walking at the back of the pack because I had to.
The horrible cold or bug or whatever it was that I had at the start of the week was mostly gone by Thursday and I felt fairly happy and rested and game to go yesterday morning when I arrived at Nationals Park in DC for opening ceremonies. I intentionally kept up a measured "mosey" pace for the first three miles -- then had an enforced rest stop of quite a while as I waited with legions of others for the handful of Port-o-Jons at the first pit stop. Apparently the permit with the city or federal government didn't let Komen set up more than around 12 Port-o-jons -- and no shelters over the beverage and food and medical stations either -- which made the pit look less like a formal pit and more like a disaster zone with thousands of walkers waiting for close to an hour to get a chance to go to the bathroom. That messed up the schedule for everyone, not just me, the rest of the day. Pits had to stay open for close to an hour after their scheduled closing times. A further complicating factor came from the narrow sidewalks and constant stoplights in the downtown DC and Georgetown area. Massive mobs of walkers would shuffle along the sidewalk, stop at a light for 45 seconds, cross, shuffle, wait, repeat. I was caught up in all that, well back in the pack, often arriving at a pit stop only ten minutes or so before Meg, the lovely 3-Day staff member who was riding the official "caboose" bicycle, would arrive and start saying "You gotta be out of the pit in five minutes."
I think it was somewhere around lunch -- when the day was really warming up -- that I started to tire. From that point forward, I found myself dealing with achy legs and no real enthusiasm for the plod-plod-plod we wound up doing UPHILL for miles and miles as we followed Massachusetts Avenue northwest toward Bethesda. I spent as much time as I could talking with the ten or fifteen walkers at the back of the pack, carrying out my Project Bloop plan of speaking to the tail-end-Charlies and hearing their stories and why they walk. But again, for my own part, I found it hard to go much over two and a half miles an hour. Short of breath and energy, I did my best to do a little Energizer Bunny act and kept on going... but regretted more than ever my poorly considered decision to have a bad cold less than a week before the 3-Day.
Things got seriously weird after the last Grab and Go and before the fifth pit stop. The fifth pit stop was also the end of the route, up somewhere past the Bethesda Metro Station. Once we got there, we would all board buses to our camp way out in Germantown. And somewhere before that stop, some of the walkers I was walking with got all excited about the prospect of being Last Walker and decided that they would all finish together and raise the flag together. I wouldn't say that any of them seemed like obvious last walker candidates -- nice people, certainly, but young, and in good shape, and apparently full of playful energy. Me, I just wanted to keep plodding and get to the finish sometime. I was somewhat sure that they were wasting their breath about being last walker because Meg, the caboose rider, was nowhere in sight behind us, and I assumed that some walkers had come out of the Port-o-jons at Grab and Go B after we'd left and were probably the real last walkers, an opinion that was confirmed about a mile from Pit 5 by some route safety riders who caught up to us. At that news, the ladies I was walking with sped up, realizing that they weren't going to be carrying the flag after all.
On the final hill, the final five hundred yards to the goal, it was all I could do to keep going. I looked back and saw several walkers, and Meg, and some route safety riders, and said "Yep, there they are." And kept walking, but next thing you know, two of the walkers had passed me. And while I thought that there were still more behind them, apparently there weren't... because when I reached the pit and sat down to zip the legs of my convertible pants back on, Meg came up to me and said "Okay, so, you're the last walker. Are you okay with raising the flag and stuff?" I lamely asked "Isn't there anyone who'd make a better, um, story?" She shrugged and said I'd be a fine story. (She does 15 of these a year. I think for her, it was fine however it came out.) So I got held back at the pit and rode in on the last bus with her and some other crew and staff and ... and when I got to camp, well, I got to do something I really felt out of place doing. I was handed the "One Day Closer To Breast Cancer" flag, told to hold it spread out, and walked with staff and photographers up to the flagpole while all the walkers clapped. At least I didn't get asked to do the whole walk-through-the-dining-tent-while-everyone-applauds thing. Jenne Fromm greeted me by name -- I'm easy to remember, pink hardhat and all, and helped me clip the flag to the halyard, then said "Go to it!" and gestured for me to raise the flag. Everyone clapped and cheered and once I had it up I stood there, trying to smile, but feeling so ... embarrassed.
Y'all who are reading this probably don't know why I'm beating up on myself this way. It's not that I feel bad about walking slowly. It's that I had meant to come in close to last. BUT NOT LAST. And I really didn't want to be the official Last Walker. When Meg asked me if I was okay being Last Walker, I looked haplessly around for the other walkers I'd been with on the last hill, but they'd apparently already gotten on the bus. Faced with that, I didn't really know what else to do. I didn't want to make waves in either direction. So I said "okay." But I really have always thought the last walker should be someone who comes in last but kept on walking all day despite going through chemo and radiation or whatever, someone whose fierce determination to fight and keep going made them an Everywoman, representing all of us as she raised the flag. I never visualized myself in that role.
But there you have it. I now have a Last Walker pin and probaby a few photos of me raising that flag are floating around out there. My photos from the day are at http://picasaweb.google.com/jayfurr, should you care to look.
I feel okay today. We'll see how things go.
The horrible cold or bug or whatever it was that I had at the start of the week was mostly gone by Thursday and I felt fairly happy and rested and game to go yesterday morning when I arrived at Nationals Park in DC for opening ceremonies. I intentionally kept up a measured "mosey" pace for the first three miles -- then had an enforced rest stop of quite a while as I waited with legions of others for the handful of Port-o-Jons at the first pit stop. Apparently the permit with the city or federal government didn't let Komen set up more than around 12 Port-o-jons -- and no shelters over the beverage and food and medical stations either -- which made the pit look less like a formal pit and more like a disaster zone with thousands of walkers waiting for close to an hour to get a chance to go to the bathroom. That messed up the schedule for everyone, not just me, the rest of the day. Pits had to stay open for close to an hour after their scheduled closing times. A further complicating factor came from the narrow sidewalks and constant stoplights in the downtown DC and Georgetown area. Massive mobs of walkers would shuffle along the sidewalk, stop at a light for 45 seconds, cross, shuffle, wait, repeat. I was caught up in all that, well back in the pack, often arriving at a pit stop only ten minutes or so before Meg, the lovely 3-Day staff member who was riding the official "caboose" bicycle, would arrive and start saying "You gotta be out of the pit in five minutes."
I think it was somewhere around lunch -- when the day was really warming up -- that I started to tire. From that point forward, I found myself dealing with achy legs and no real enthusiasm for the plod-plod-plod we wound up doing UPHILL for miles and miles as we followed Massachusetts Avenue northwest toward Bethesda. I spent as much time as I could talking with the ten or fifteen walkers at the back of the pack, carrying out my Project Bloop plan of speaking to the tail-end-Charlies and hearing their stories and why they walk. But again, for my own part, I found it hard to go much over two and a half miles an hour. Short of breath and energy, I did my best to do a little Energizer Bunny act and kept on going... but regretted more than ever my poorly considered decision to have a bad cold less than a week before the 3-Day.
Things got seriously weird after the last Grab and Go and before the fifth pit stop. The fifth pit stop was also the end of the route, up somewhere past the Bethesda Metro Station. Once we got there, we would all board buses to our camp way out in Germantown. And somewhere before that stop, some of the walkers I was walking with got all excited about the prospect of being Last Walker and decided that they would all finish together and raise the flag together. I wouldn't say that any of them seemed like obvious last walker candidates -- nice people, certainly, but young, and in good shape, and apparently full of playful energy. Me, I just wanted to keep plodding and get to the finish sometime. I was somewhat sure that they were wasting their breath about being last walker because Meg, the caboose rider, was nowhere in sight behind us, and I assumed that some walkers had come out of the Port-o-jons at Grab and Go B after we'd left and were probably the real last walkers, an opinion that was confirmed about a mile from Pit 5 by some route safety riders who caught up to us. At that news, the ladies I was walking with sped up, realizing that they weren't going to be carrying the flag after all.
On the final hill, the final five hundred yards to the goal, it was all I could do to keep going. I looked back and saw several walkers, and Meg, and some route safety riders, and said "Yep, there they are." And kept walking, but next thing you know, two of the walkers had passed me. And while I thought that there were still more behind them, apparently there weren't... because when I reached the pit and sat down to zip the legs of my convertible pants back on, Meg came up to me and said "Okay, so, you're the last walker. Are you okay with raising the flag and stuff?" I lamely asked "Isn't there anyone who'd make a better, um, story?" She shrugged and said I'd be a fine story. (She does 15 of these a year. I think for her, it was fine however it came out.) So I got held back at the pit and rode in on the last bus with her and some other crew and staff and ... and when I got to camp, well, I got to do something I really felt out of place doing. I was handed the "One Day Closer To Breast Cancer" flag, told to hold it spread out, and walked with staff and photographers up to the flagpole while all the walkers clapped. At least I didn't get asked to do the whole walk-through-the-dining-tent-while-everyone-applauds thing. Jenne Fromm greeted me by name -- I'm easy to remember, pink hardhat and all, and helped me clip the flag to the halyard, then said "Go to it!" and gestured for me to raise the flag. Everyone clapped and cheered and once I had it up I stood there, trying to smile, but feeling so ... embarrassed.
Y'all who are reading this probably don't know why I'm beating up on myself this way. It's not that I feel bad about walking slowly. It's that I had meant to come in close to last. BUT NOT LAST. And I really didn't want to be the official Last Walker. When Meg asked me if I was okay being Last Walker, I looked haplessly around for the other walkers I'd been with on the last hill, but they'd apparently already gotten on the bus. Faced with that, I didn't really know what else to do. I didn't want to make waves in either direction. So I said "okay." But I really have always thought the last walker should be someone who comes in last but kept on walking all day despite going through chemo and radiation or whatever, someone whose fierce determination to fight and keep going made them an Everywoman, representing all of us as she raised the flag. I never visualized myself in that role.
But there you have it. I now have a Last Walker pin and probaby a few photos of me raising that flag are floating around out there. My photos from the day are at http://picasaweb.google.com/jayfurr, should you care to look.
I feel okay today. We'll see how things go.
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no subject
Date: 2010-10-09 02:15 pm (UTC)