Head For The Hills!
May. 17th, 2011 09:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jayfurr"HEAD FOR THE HILLS!"
We associate that phrase with an impending flood. Or invasion of giant radioactive banana slugs. Or a visit from the in-laws.
In the case of the Susan G. Komen 3-Day For The Cure breast cancer benefit walks, the sixty-miles-in-three-days walks that take place in fourteen US cities each year (it used to be fifteen, but the giant radioactive banana slugs got Denver, so now there are only fourteen), there isn't much that raises as much fear and loathing as the prospect of a hilly route.
A great many walkers are not what you'd call ... athletes. They're moms. And grandmothers. And people who have gone through, or are currently going through chemotherapy and/or radiation treatments. And, well, people like me: someone who managed to screw his knee up trying to run a 5K. Not exactly the sort of people who regard the Badwater Ultramarathon as a pleasant day's jog. So when you tell them that the route they're going to walk is not just sixty miles long but includes significant ascents and descents, they groan.
"HEAD AWAAAAAAAAAAY FROM THE HILLS" might be a more apropos cry at such times.
I've been asked on many occasions which 3-Day walks, and I quote, "don't involve hills". I haven't walked all the 3-Day cities (in fact, I've only walked or crewed in five), so I can't honestly say which have the flattest, least hilly terrain. Tampa Bay, for one, wasn't very hilly -- but it had a lot of huge bridges going over large bodies of water and those were hard on some walkers. Washington had a lot of hills. Twin Cities had some. Philadelphia... definitely. Boston? Yeah. You find hills just about everywhere.
Personally, I don't fear the hills. I live in Vermont (although it seems, at times, like I never actually spend any time there; I travel a lot for work). We have hills. We have mountains, although I'll grant you that ours don't attain the proportions of the Colorado Rockies. (Then again, we don't have to deal with a lot of giant radioactive monsters, so it all works out.) Our highest mountain is only 4,400 feet tall -- but a lot of our countryside is very hilly and rolling and somewhat rugged. When we go out for training walks (toughening our feet and hips and legs for the work of doing 20 miles a day 3 days in a row), we get hills pretty much whether we like them or not.
I know what it is to look at a hill while walking a 3-Day and groan. During my very first 3-Day walk, the 2008 Washington DC 3-Day, I stupidly decided to wear my favorite hiking boots rather than comfortable, shock-absorbing running shoes. I had a lot of blisters and my feet genuinely hurt by the third day. Hiking boots may be great for traction on mountain trails, but they're not optimal for sixty miles of steady, repetitive tromping on asphalt and concrete. On the morning of the third day, our route led us up Walter Reed Hill in Arlington, Virginia. It's a big, steep hill -- the steepest in the area, if I recall correctly. I was not the only walker who goggled at the prospect of going up what seemed at the time like ascending the Matterhorn. As I'm fond of recollecting, an older walker looked sourly at the bunch of us and simply said "It beats chemo." A bit ashamed of our histrionics, we went on up the hill.
If you've never walked a 3-Day or any other long-distance charity walk, there are some things you might not know. One is that the walks are not meant to bring back happy memories of your time at Parris Island going through boot camp. They are meant to be somewhat challenging, working from the assumption that donors will give more liberally if the walkers they're supporting are actually willing to go to some considerable effort themselves. The 3-Day is not a little stroll around your neighborhood park, but it's also not meant to be the Bataan Death March. If a walker simply cannot continue due to stiff legs, blisters, or just plain tiredness, they're encouraged to take one of the many 'sweep vans' that patrol the route. A sweep van can take you on to the next pit stop where you can rest and make the decision as to whether you'll be able to go on, or need to be taken on to lunch or to camp on a shuttle bus.
For that matter, you are allowed to take a sweep van up a particularly nasty hill -- if you feel you must. No one will point and laugh. When I did the Tampa Bay 3-Day last year we had walkers taking sweep vans over the larger bridges -- partly from a fear of bridges, partly because the bridges were actually pretty high and were serious hills in their own right. I didn't see anyone negatively judging the walkers who took the sweep van option. I have it on reliable authority that my friends on the sweep van crews accept all who board their vehicles without discrimination due to race, color, creed, national origin, sexual orientation... or the number of blisters you've got or how much training you did (or didn't) do. I've never ridden a sweep van, but I've heard nothing but good things about the experience. Ride one if you need to.
To summon a sweep van, incidentally, all you have to do is step to the side of the route and cross your arms over your head. I can't say that a sweep van will magically materialize like the agents in the State Farm commercials, but you generally haven't long to wait.
Do you need to train on hills? Absolutely. You use your hamstrings when ascending a hill. These muscles will not get a sufficient workout if you simply do laps around the track at your local high school. If you want to stay out of the medical tent during the event, you need to train for the conditions that you'll experience on the 3-Day.
And that's why I personally feel a need to go out and do extra hills in my upcoming training. You see, I'm signed up to walk San Francisco.
There are hills in San Francisco.
One or two, anyway.
And I'll level with you: I love the sweep vans and their stellar, happy, cheerful crewmembers -- but my donors don't donate toward the 3-Day just to see photos from the event taken from inside a van. They donate so we can find a cure for breast cancer and take care of those currently suffering. They donate to fund mammograms and treatments and detection. They don't donate so I can have a weekend riding around with my feet up. We have a deal: they donate, and I walk.
Between you and me, I'm really looking forward to turning the Golden Gate Bridge pink.
We associate that phrase with an impending flood. Or invasion of giant radioactive banana slugs. Or a visit from the in-laws.
In the case of the Susan G. Komen 3-Day For The Cure breast cancer benefit walks, the sixty-miles-in-three-days walks that take place in fourteen US cities each year (it used to be fifteen, but the giant radioactive banana slugs got Denver, so now there are only fourteen), there isn't much that raises as much fear and loathing as the prospect of a hilly route.
A great many walkers are not what you'd call ... athletes. They're moms. And grandmothers. And people who have gone through, or are currently going through chemotherapy and/or radiation treatments. And, well, people like me: someone who managed to screw his knee up trying to run a 5K. Not exactly the sort of people who regard the Badwater Ultramarathon as a pleasant day's jog. So when you tell them that the route they're going to walk is not just sixty miles long but includes significant ascents and descents, they groan.
"HEAD AWAAAAAAAAAAY FROM THE HILLS" might be a more apropos cry at such times.
I've been asked on many occasions which 3-Day walks, and I quote, "don't involve hills". I haven't walked all the 3-Day cities (in fact, I've only walked or crewed in five), so I can't honestly say which have the flattest, least hilly terrain. Tampa Bay, for one, wasn't very hilly -- but it had a lot of huge bridges going over large bodies of water and those were hard on some walkers. Washington had a lot of hills. Twin Cities had some. Philadelphia... definitely. Boston? Yeah. You find hills just about everywhere.
Personally, I don't fear the hills. I live in Vermont (although it seems, at times, like I never actually spend any time there; I travel a lot for work). We have hills. We have mountains, although I'll grant you that ours don't attain the proportions of the Colorado Rockies. (Then again, we don't have to deal with a lot of giant radioactive monsters, so it all works out.) Our highest mountain is only 4,400 feet tall -- but a lot of our countryside is very hilly and rolling and somewhat rugged. When we go out for training walks (toughening our feet and hips and legs for the work of doing 20 miles a day 3 days in a row), we get hills pretty much whether we like them or not.
I know what it is to look at a hill while walking a 3-Day and groan. During my very first 3-Day walk, the 2008 Washington DC 3-Day, I stupidly decided to wear my favorite hiking boots rather than comfortable, shock-absorbing running shoes. I had a lot of blisters and my feet genuinely hurt by the third day. Hiking boots may be great for traction on mountain trails, but they're not optimal for sixty miles of steady, repetitive tromping on asphalt and concrete. On the morning of the third day, our route led us up Walter Reed Hill in Arlington, Virginia. It's a big, steep hill -- the steepest in the area, if I recall correctly. I was not the only walker who goggled at the prospect of going up what seemed at the time like ascending the Matterhorn. As I'm fond of recollecting, an older walker looked sourly at the bunch of us and simply said "It beats chemo." A bit ashamed of our histrionics, we went on up the hill.
If you've never walked a 3-Day or any other long-distance charity walk, there are some things you might not know. One is that the walks are not meant to bring back happy memories of your time at Parris Island going through boot camp. They are meant to be somewhat challenging, working from the assumption that donors will give more liberally if the walkers they're supporting are actually willing to go to some considerable effort themselves. The 3-Day is not a little stroll around your neighborhood park, but it's also not meant to be the Bataan Death March. If a walker simply cannot continue due to stiff legs, blisters, or just plain tiredness, they're encouraged to take one of the many 'sweep vans' that patrol the route. A sweep van can take you on to the next pit stop where you can rest and make the decision as to whether you'll be able to go on, or need to be taken on to lunch or to camp on a shuttle bus.
For that matter, you are allowed to take a sweep van up a particularly nasty hill -- if you feel you must. No one will point and laugh. When I did the Tampa Bay 3-Day last year we had walkers taking sweep vans over the larger bridges -- partly from a fear of bridges, partly because the bridges were actually pretty high and were serious hills in their own right. I didn't see anyone negatively judging the walkers who took the sweep van option. I have it on reliable authority that my friends on the sweep van crews accept all who board their vehicles without discrimination due to race, color, creed, national origin, sexual orientation... or the number of blisters you've got or how much training you did (or didn't) do. I've never ridden a sweep van, but I've heard nothing but good things about the experience. Ride one if you need to.
To summon a sweep van, incidentally, all you have to do is step to the side of the route and cross your arms over your head. I can't say that a sweep van will magically materialize like the agents in the State Farm commercials, but you generally haven't long to wait.
Do you need to train on hills? Absolutely. You use your hamstrings when ascending a hill. These muscles will not get a sufficient workout if you simply do laps around the track at your local high school. If you want to stay out of the medical tent during the event, you need to train for the conditions that you'll experience on the 3-Day.
And that's why I personally feel a need to go out and do extra hills in my upcoming training. You see, I'm signed up to walk San Francisco.
There are hills in San Francisco.
One or two, anyway.
And I'll level with you: I love the sweep vans and their stellar, happy, cheerful crewmembers -- but my donors don't donate toward the 3-Day just to see photos from the event taken from inside a van. They donate so we can find a cure for breast cancer and take care of those currently suffering. They donate to fund mammograms and treatments and detection. They don't donate so I can have a weekend riding around with my feet up. We have a deal: they donate, and I walk.
Between you and me, I'm really looking forward to turning the Golden Gate Bridge pink.
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Date: 2011-05-18 12:53 pm (UTC)I was on the Sweep crew the last 2 years in Boston (walking this year), and I can tell you first-hand, from the driver's seat, they are FUN (at least ours was!!!)--even our passengers agreed. In fact, that's how I met Kandice and became friends! I must add that there is NO DISGRACE in riding the sweep van, especially up "heartbreak hill"--especially if one did not have the availability to train on hills--especially if one is ill...or old...or (fill in your own reason). Each walker has already done the hardest, most important part...raised the money and the awareness. Participation in the 3-Day itself is just a little "walk in the park."
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Date: 2011-05-18 09:32 pm (UTC)