We walked 60 miles (100 km) over 3 days, we laughed like we have never laughed before, we cried of emotion, we cried of exhaustion and we all had the time of our lives. My friend Fiona come all the way from the UK to do the walk with us and she was in town ready to have the walk of her life in flip-flops!.
We met at Corte Madera hotel on Thursday evening, many of us (I include myself here) did not sleep at all, too much excitement and too many things on your head: will I make it?, where are we going?, is it going to be too much for me?. We were all up at 4:15 am and ready at the lobby of the hotel at 5 am, took the bus and at 6 am we were ready at the main camp for opening ceremony. The opening was emotional but encourage, people who have lost the battle were specially remember and people who have gone through diagnosed and treatment as well. We started the walk at around 7 am, we went through Corte Madera, Tiburon, Sausalito and stop at the bottom of Golden gate for lunch. We cross the Golden Gate after lunch and then walk down to the marina, Crissy field and Fisherman wharf. It was a total of 19 miles and we made it back at around 3:30 pm, we stop a few times at different pit stops and we took time for lunch...the idea was to take it easy. We took the ferry to Treasure island where we had to walk another 1.5 miles to camp, we picked up our bags and tent and under cold, windy weather we started setting up our tents for the night. At that point I was a bit worried that it was going to be a long night!!. We ate like if we had never eaten before, we visit all the tents at camp and we were in bed at 8:30 pm!. I think I was sleeping by 9 pm and slept on and off all night, I was so exhausted of not sleeping the night before!.
Second day, we took the bus to Berkeley where we walked another 20 miles around the city. The walk was tough as it had lots of hills and it was all around the city so it was not as impressive as the Friday walk views. We took almost 2 hours for lunch as some people needed assistant with muscle pain, we ate a sandwich and the ones who had blisters took care of it with the medical staff. We made it back to camp by bus at around 5:30 pm, we were emotional, exhausted and we just wanted to lay down and sleep. We had dinner and we decided to make it to Hotel without spending any more minute at camp. The idea was always to have one night at camp in tent and one night at hotel. We arrived at the Hilton at 8 pm, only two rooms were ready so in return they delivered three bottles of wine, cheese and fruit to one of the rooms. We had a great time after a quick shower, we laughed while having a well deserved glass of wine. We were in bed by 10 pm
We slept like angels on Saturday night and we were ready at 7 am at the hotel lobby to walk our last day of the 60 miles. We arrived at the start point at 7:30 am and started the walk, we cross Crissy fields, up one side of the Golden Gate to go all the way to Lands End, one of the most beautiful walks I have ever done in my life. We then had lunch at the other side of lands end and crossed Golden Gate park all the way to San Francisco. Part of the walk was like a hike, it was hard but we had such a great spirit that we all did it really well. It was really emotional to arrive to the end!!.
Things that I can highlight from the weekend, first of all it was to spend quality time with the girls, it was a time that we will remember for a long time!. along the walk you see things that do make you very emotional: a woman who had just finished treatment was walking with her daughter, an 80 year old couple were holding a big sign at the side of the road waiting to cheer their daughters that said : " thank you for walking, 42 years survivor". To see our families cheering us up each day, to see our Spanish group making a big banner for us and waited to cheer us up on Sunday morning, it was really emotional.
Then you have the closing ceremony, where people are exhausted and emotional but every single person has got a huge smile on their face. People who have lost the battle were remembered, I did cry for my grandma who did not have the opportunity like me to fight breast cancer. People who are going through treatment were remembered and I thought about all my oncuchangas who are currently going through treatment like Mila and Rebe and they are almost at the end of it. I cried and danced at the same time, I was honored to be there with such an amazing group of friends supporting me through the way.
This year walk had 950 walkers, 400 less than last year, as the bad press of Susan G Komen this year really affected it. But the event still collected $2.4M net!!. I am not very keen on some of the things that Susan G Komen does but I also have to admit that they are one of the associations that can make a difference on the fight against breast cancer and I will always support them for that.
