Woulda Coulda Shoulda

Otto here –

Wanted to give you a Mir update … she’s okay, but she’s at home now and won’t finish the walk.

She started feeling under the weather Friday afternoon and, after some talks with the medical staff, decided to head home last evening. She’s essentially been asleep for the last 24 hours, with a fever and headache, but seems to be doing a little better this evening.

Keep her in your thoughts as her spirits are pretty down right now. Even though she didn’t make it to the end, she still did a heck of a job – raising $6,000 towards cancer research is no small feat for a single working mother of two. And she has a lot of you guys to thank for your continued support. I know you are all as proud of her as I am.

-Otto out

Thanks mostly to the kind generosity of my readers (that would be YOU, people), I have exceeded my goal of raising $5,000 for the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

In fact, I’ve raised a cool $6,000 to fund further breast cancer research.

I cannot express how moved I am at how folks responded to the call to dig deep. Several of you (including the one who felt the need to push me up to $6k, saying “it’ll be easier for you to keep going, if you know that every single mile is $100!”) donated more than once. I know that even this is a drop in the bucket compared to what’s needed to TRULY make breast cancer history, but I am humbled to be even a small part of it all.

And a small part is what I am. A small part with a lot of gear. Where did all of this gear come from?? (more…)

… that it didn’t even occur to me, until I typed it, that that would be an excellent name for a porno.
… that I leaned over to adjust my shoe and the hood of my windbreaker dumped out a quart of water.
… that my socks turned blue from my heel support inserts.
… that my toes were all pruney.
… that we stopped after 9 miles because I was actually starting to get that chilled-to-the-bone feeling. Not to mention the blisters on the tips of my prunes, err, toes, and how we thought we’d put on dry socks and keep going, but our shoes were positively squishy.

So, yeah. It was pretty wet. But we had a great time despite having just met this morning (hi, Amanda!) and did a bunch of hills and decided that between the hills and the rain we get to count it as at least twice as far as it actually was. Shut up. That’s completely logical.

Woo, I walked 9 miles in the rain! Am totally ready to go walk 60 miles, now!
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Remember how I said I’d arranged for no rain? It was all good, and then I lost my mind and accepted an invitation for a 15-mile training walk at 7:00 tomorrow morning.

It is now pouring (and is forecast to continue through the weekend).

Me, I’m just sitting here listening to the rain… wondering just how badly 15 miles in a downpour is going to suck.

My guess is that the suckage will go all the way up to eleven! I’ll let you know.

As of five minutes ago, I have achieved my goal of raising $5,000 for the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

HUGE thank yous to everyone who was kind enough to donate. And YES, you can still donate. Also, my walk partner hasn’t yet reached her minimum, so feel free to email me for a link to HER page if you’d like to donate to her (which is really a donation for me, because I have an irrational fear about sharing a tent with a stranger).

I can’t put into words how moved I am by this experience ALREADY. I’m going to be an utter basket case on the walk itself.

Do you know what day today is? Do you?

Today is the day I realized that the 3-Day is going to chew me up and spit me out, and I am going to have to figure out how to get home from Boston with only bloody stumps left at the ends of my legs.

Do you remember how I was training? How I had plenty of time? How I was going to kick ass and take names and laugh in the face of those 60 miles? Ummm… do you remember what I was smoking when I said that, because I seem to be out…?

I’m a bit frustrated with myself, and my delicate toes.
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