An easy 8

Saturday was an easy 8. Eight is easy?! Yes!! It's so funny to me how 8 miles now seems easy. That walking 8 miles--almost 3 hours--is a relief to me.

Of course it was hard to get up Saturday morning, but I'm so glad I did. Walked with a great group--including a few power walkers who I gladly let speed on ahead of us. I stayed among the same few people during the walk. Laughed a lot. I think we're pretty damn funny.

We passed a large group of walkers. Although I never played soccer, I know the tradition at the end of passing each other, slapping hands, saying "good game, good game." ... Only a few joined in with me.

There were also lots and lots of runners, obviously training for something. We were able to ask a few different groups what they were doing. They were training with Austin Fit, all walking different mileages. We encouraged them along.

Carla, who has been on the Crew before gave us lots of tips and suggestions. We're all talking about what we still need to buy and what we still need to do. Carla said she bought a big huge ziploc type bag at Wal-Mart. I'm sure I need one, but secretly the only reason I want one is to be able to zip-lock the HUGE baggie-zipper thing. My fingers are literally itching to zip it!


Lisa is one of the women I frequently walk with. She's on the team, Candy's Canes. Her good friend, Candy, has been cancer-free about a year now. She lives in Dallas, and was down for the weekend. At the end of our walk (and before a few others had to do another 9 miles), she stopped us and said some very nice things. She said something like, "I know that all of you have your different reasons for doing this, but thank you for doing this. It really means a lot that you are walking, no matter what the reason is. I know we all have our own reasons, and you need to know you are doing a good thing. .... " Something along those lines. It was a very nice thing to hear. I'm so glad she said it.



Today Amanda and I walked/hiked at the Greenbelt. Didn't do the 6 I was "supposed" to do, but it was a nice walk. It was nice to see some new scenery, including a nice stream and some small hills and lots of trees and a bit of seclusion.

Next week things get really rough. We're slated to walk 17 miles on Saturday and 13 on Sunday. We're trying a new route on Saturday. I think it'll be a bit rough, but we're meeting at a grocery store--a good place to stock up on electrolytes. I also bought some Clif bars at Costco today.

It's September. That means the walk is next month. That's scary and exciting. Yes, I'm a bit nervous. ... But also so way like totally excited.