Day 3

See previous 2 posts for Day 1 and Day 2.

After getting a pretty decent night's sleep, we were up early for Day 3. Camp was busy and awake with everyone packing up their gear, breaking down their tents, loading the gear trucks and getting breakfast.

This is a picture of one of the awesome crew members - they dressed up so funny - to keep us motivated. He's standing at the back of a 20 foot truck loaded with gear! I can't imagine loading all those bags on there.

We wanted to get an early start to the day so we would have time to make it into "Holding" without being rushed all day. But first, we had to stop at the blister self-care station so Shannon could take care of those little boogers before our start.

We began our day by taking a big bus to where the route started...Ursuline Academy in North Dallas off Walnut Hill and Inwood Road. I was really looking forward to Day 3's route. I knew we were walking through some really beautiful parts of Dallas and all the way into Fair Park. It just didn't seem possible.

It was pretty quiet in the morning. The sweep vans weren't allowed to blast their stereos for us until 9am....wouldn't want to disturb the Highland Park neighbors on Sunday morning. But several families were out in the yards cheering for us.

It was a peaceful morning and a morning filled with determination and achievement. But, also a little bit overwhelmed that we had 15 miles on our route cards that morning.

The roses were even pink for us.

This was the most amazing front yard. This huge display of pumpkins and mums...and this was only 1 of them. We had to stop for a picture!

We had walked for awhile with 2 Marines. They seemed nice but wouldn't do any cadence yells for us - thought they'd be too inappropriate for us women. I wouldn't have minded at that point. My pace was not as fast on Sunday morning and I needed something to get me moving!

We wound our way all through Highland Park and University Park until we made it to Lemmon Ave and Turtle Creek for lunch.

Lunch was so hard this day...I knew I needed to eat but I could hardly choke down the sandwich. After eating and drinking all weekend I was so full. I now get why they call it the "3 Day Buffet". They keep you well fed and hydrated! But enough was enough.

I had some issue with my big toe on my left foot that morning. It was discovered at lunch that there was a blister UNDER the toenail...ouchy! But, not much I could do about it except not think about it. I was finishing this thing, especially since we had come so far.

We then walked through the Turtle Creek area all the way into Downtown.

Lindsey got to carry the flag of who she was walking for - Julia and her future without breast cancer.

We found ourselves walking on Harry Hines into the West End by the American Airlines Center, Victory Park and Dealey Plaza.

West End had one of the most amazing cheering stations. There were hundreds of people there and it was so overwhelming at that point. Many of these people had been at each and every one of the previous stations all weekend. We were all old friends at this point. We felt like such celebrities and superstars as we received those high fives and "way to go's".

After we made it through Dealey Plaza we found Bryan, Debbie and the boys waiting for us. So good to see them!

We then saw Shannon's family again as we headed up the road.

We ventured further into Downtown, past the old Neiman Marcus and into Deep Ellum. And who would we meet but Kathy and her sister...the lady I met on Day 1 on the bus to Opening Ceremony. I had come full circle at this point. (You can kind of see Kathy in the picture above - she is walking past on the right).

My video camera barely had any room on it....later, I realized I had put it into my backpack with it still taping and so it taped 45 minutes of what it must have been like from inside my water pack. But, that meant there was not much room for me to tape anymore of Day 3...bummer. The camera battery was also dying - so I had to conserve and that is why there are far fewer pictures from Day 3.

Deep Ellum was a bit lonely and drab....it was only 4 more miles but the course was getting hot and the sweep vans were too busy to provide any motivation for us. The conversation was quiet as we concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. The pain was starting to settle in and it almost became too uncomfortable to stop at the crosswalks. My body could no longer stretch any more as it provide no relief to my legs. My toe was aching but I was hanging in there. And then, just as I thought, "seriously, how much further?" A young woman, was bouncing by me. No hair, no eyebrows...clearly trying to beat cancer. I knew I could do it from there on out - if she could do it, I could do it.

As the mileage got shorter the time seemed longer. But we had this. We HAD this.

Fair Park was a glorious thing to see.

We did it. We walked into the Holding Area. Such a relief!!! The cheers from all the walkers who had made it in before us were awesome!

In Holding, we watched as people walked in - barely walking, barely standing. One woman was taken in an ambulance, the ambulance all of us had signed at an earlier pit stop that day.

We realized how well we had done and how we had managed to do this with no injury.

We hung out in holding for awhile before they lined us up to march into the Closing Ceremony. Arm in arm we marched together, all 2900 of us!

As we turned the corner we saw all 400 crew members cheering for us one final time as we made it to the end of our journey. The tears were unstoppable. And nothing hurt at this point!

As we passed through the gates into the Ceremony we saw our family there cheering for us. I was proud my boys could see their mother do something this profound!

Closing Ceremony was inspirational as we raised a shoe in salute of the survivors that were walking in.

DFW Breast Cancer 3 Day had raised $7.5 million dollars that weekend. It's unbelieveable to think our team of 3 raised $13,000 of it. Dedication and hard work does pay off!

I thank Lindsey and Shannon for loving me enough to take this journey with me. I thank my family for all of their support and time to cheer me on in this whole process. I thank all those that donated to me and my cause. I thank you for letting me have this amazing experience!

Thank you!