You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.
~Eleanor Roosevelt
Walk. Sixty miles. Three days. I am not an athlete, and I am likely to circle the parking lot for a space two steps closer to the grocery store. So why, at age 48, would I even consider this?
Something about the ads for the first D.C. Avon Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk in 2000 resonated with me. At the orientation meeting, watching the promotional video, I noted between sniffles that the people in the room were all ages and sizes. Like me, many had never done anything remotely like this before.
I coaxed my best friend Karen into walking with me. She registered immediately, and I… waffled, sucked into the quicksand of all the very practical, fearsome arguments against it. I could let it pass, like so many other things, and my life would continue as it was… not bad, just familiar. I would hear about the Walk and run into people who were doing it, and I would say, “Yeah, I thought about doing that, but…”
I realized I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to trust that first exuberant impulse. I mailed my registration. I started walking.
My first official training walk was 7.2 miles on a cold day in January, three times around a beautiful lake. There were many of these walks, organized by other walkers, some of whom had been training since November. I liked the lake because I returned to the bathroom and parking lot every 2.4 miles, so I could choose whether to go around again.
Gradually, I advanced to a weekend routine of five laps (12 miles). At my pace of three miles per hour, it took over four hours with stretching and bathroom breaks.
An early challenge was the instruction to walk without distractions. Could I really spend that much time alone with myself? I began to notice things — a woodpecker, the way the light hit the trees at one especially pretty spot, two men fishing, a father helping his son wobble along on training wheels, a young couple holding hands, a mother with a stroller, several teenagers Rollerblading, a marker in memory of a loved one.
When people passed in the opposite direction, I was privy to their conversations for just a moment. I joined their world very briefly, and then we parted. If we passed again, we smiled as if we knew each other.
My vocabulary changed. I used words like “COOLMAX,” “hydrate,” “GORE-TEX” and “Thorlo.” I ate things called LUNA Bars and shopped in the Rugged Outdoors section of Hudson Trail Outfitters.
I realized I had not been “friends” with my body, never comfortable with its form or confident in its function. I had struggled with my weight most of my life. Now I was learning to listen to my body when it needed to stretch or slow down — because the consequence of not doing so was pain. My body learned to listen to me, too, when I asked it to push its limits. I felt greater energy. I delighted in knowing that, where before I would yell upstairs to the kids to stop fighting, now they knew I could take the steps two at a time.
In March, Karen and I began 14-mile walks together every weekend. The talks, laughter, and shared physical challenges are among my fondest memories. It was often raining or drizzly, and either one of us might call to ask, “Should we cancel today?” The other usually said, “No. Let’s go.”
At last, Day One of the Walk arrived. After training for months in cold or rainy weather, May 5–7 were three days of 97-plus-degree heat. Fire departments and residents along our route turned on their hoses. One rest stop had blocks of ice sculptured into a chair for us to sit on. I developed heat rash all over my legs and had to walk in long pants.
Day One’s hallmark was a steep, nasty hill. I couldn’t see the top from the bottom. I started crying halfway up and crumpled on the side of the road, convinced I would have to be airlifted home. With Karen’s encouragement, I dug down and found strength I didn’t know I had. I was able to top the hill.
I have driven back to that hill and, though it is steep, it doesn’t look as monstrous as it felt that day.
I woke on Day Two in terror of what lay ahead. We had 20 miles to cover in near-100-degree heat. I felt like a soldier preparing for battle, but unlike a soldier, I had a choice.
“This is stupid. I don’t want to do this,” I said, sobbing. Where is the line between bravery and foolishness? I learned that courage is not the absence of fear but the determination to do something in spite of it.
We set out at 7:30 a.m. and arrived at our Day Two camp at 6:30 p.m.
At one rest point, we hid in the bushes to avoid being “swept” into the bus for stragglers. We had one goal: to walk all 60 miles and make it to the end.
As we approached the final leg, with the Washington Monument in sight, a woman just ahead of us collapsed in the street. We had grown accustomed to the ambulances at every rest stop. But this terrified us, so close to the end. We stopped to gather strength for the last push.
Walkers who had finished ahead of us lined the path, high-fiving the new arrivals. We were sore and giddy with triumph. There were speeches and delays while we waited for the last walkers to assemble for the final parade up the Mall to the Monument, where our families waited excitedly.
I took so much from this experience — simple tenets that inform all aspects of my life:
Go at your own pace.
Listen to your body.
One foot in front of the other.
Stretch.
Be in the moment.
Work through the pain.
You can do it.
Most of all, I learned the profound importance of being there for someone facing a life challenge. Strangers lined our route with signs of encouragement and support. It helped to know that my effort mattered, that I wasn’t alone. I have tried to incorporate that into my life by sending cards and calling or visiting friends in crisis on a regular basis to assure them their struggle is not forgotten.
I learned the importance of kindness and looking out for each other. As the promotional literature said: “The 3-Day is based on the simple idea that if everyone stopped trying so hard to get ahead, no one would be left behind… Imagine a world that works for everyone for three days.”
In May 2000, it did.
Sadly, in 2013, Karen lost a two-year battle with a brain tumor. I continue to walk, and I always feel that my best friend is by my side.
— Carol Randolph —