It wasn't really as bad as all that. But I was a little disappointed in myself that I didn't walk more than 10 miles of the 21.5 slated today for the Washington, D.C. Breast Cancer 3-Day. I have been training and fundraising for this forever, right? Shouldn't I actually DO it?!

I had a healthy sense of humor about my huge blisters (like, WAY bigger than a quarter) on the bottom of my feet and took a close-up pic of them as the nice medic volunteer informed me that they would have to be popped. (Of course, I thought, it really HURTS to walk on them. And there's not really a way to avoid walking on the bottom of your feet.

)

He put these little gel skin-on-skin things over the lanced blisters and moleskin on top of that. And then he lectured me (nicely) on how one should not just assume their feet hurt simply because they have walked more than 15 miles and should remove their socks to check for developing blisters at every stop. Obviously, I had not done that yesterday.

Me: Oops.

Him: And you know, if you plan to keep walking, you should really see a podiatrist when you get home.

Random woman: The route is closing in 5 minutes so if you don't start walking by then, we're going to have to put you on a bus to lunch.

Him: We're almost done here. Give me your foot, honey, and I'll put your sock on for you ... I bet you've never had a man do that for you.

Me: No.

Him: Well, I'm old enough to be your father.

And because he looked like he was AT LEAST that old, I didn't really say anything while I put my shoes. It wasn't until about 4 miles later, when it was sprinkling and all the foot aches from yesterday came back and I begged Aleve off a random woman that I realized I should have asked him why I needed to see a podiatrist.

Is my foot somehow deformed from walking? I bought nice shoes and had a nice salesman suggest a good fit for me, but I suppose something could be wrong with my shoes since I have gradually worked up some serious callouses and yet, still get random blisters. And I did shove my feet into cute but relatively narrow shoes for years before admitting that I have wide feet. Perhaps I've already walked myself into a painful bunion problem...

:: Walker's sigh. ::

Anyway, walking hurt. So my awesome walking buddy and I took a sweep van to the next stop, rested our feet for a bit and took off again. And the tootsies started hurting again within a mile. So we took another van to another stop. And I began to get a little discouraged that Aleve wasn't doing more.

And then I couldn't focus on being discouraged because just plain walking hurt. And everyone seemed to be doing it faster, which meant we were constantly being passed, which only made walking on uneven and slanting sidewalks more painful. My muscles didn't hurt, and I felt perfectly hydrated, but my feet - the blisters and just the skeletal structure of my feet - hurt.

After mild grumbling for a few miles, I admitted to myself that I was at the point that 1) the pain was not going to subside to an ignorable level; 2) persisting to walk would benefit nothing, least of all my chances of walking well tomorrow (the last day); and 3) I had, in fact, walked all 20 miles the previous day, something I had never done before.

So I decided to get on the big bus and give up for the day.

It's a little sad when you see so many people who are keeping a swift walking pace or seem content to walk through the pain --- I walked by a woman yesterday with a walking cast. Yes, a normal she-injured-her-leg-before-the-walk-so-they-put-her-in-a-cast cast. The cast was pink, and she was very cheery. Around 4:30 p.m. today, I was not so cheery.

But now that I've sat in a glorious massage chair for two five-minute intervals and put some ice on my feet, I've decided to accept that I'm walking for myself. Fundraising was something I did MOSTLY for others; blogging about the 3-Day was PARTIALLY something I did for others. But the training and walking these three days is really for me.

I wanted to push myself a little, meet some interesting new people, and see Washington, D.C. from a different perspective. And there is little point to doing it past my pain thresh-hold, however low I might think that is when I get discouraged. So, I got on the bus, gave myself time to recuperate, and plan to go at it again tomorrow.