A great journey with my BFF

Well really it was 3 days of walking with my "Breast Friend". I have known Aubrey for 30 years, wow that makes me feel really old! But we have known each other since kindergarten! Taking on the 3Day walk with her was wonderful, for so many reasons but really because we are like an old married couple, we can just tell when there doesn't need to be a conversation, when something is wrong, right, etc.

Aubrey was somehow inspired by me, I don't know how I could inspire anything, I feel like I can barely inspire my kids to go to school and not get in trouble and barely inspire myself to get out of bed! But, she was moved to join me and it made all the difference in the world. The last time I did this walk, I did it by myself in honor of a great friend who was at the time battling the disease. This time I did it in honor of 3 more women who were just diagnosed - 2 family members and another great friend. This disease is just becoming more common place and I am afraid of that, I am afraid that I will have to battle it, or that Sarah will have to battle it. I guess I really feel like I need to do something in the fight against breast cancer, even though it's not really fighting or curing the disease, I guess it's my own way of feeling like I am doing something for these very special women in my life.

So, we fundraised for 4 months all the way up until the day of the walk asking for donations to reach our goal of $2300. We achieved that goal and we took on the 60 miles together, named ourselves the "Breast Friends" which was just as goofy as we are. Mark so kindly pointed out that we haven't changed, "Still dorks" he said as we danced on our way - can't remember what song but it was surely some 80's or 90's dance hit. Yep, we are dorks and we are proud of it! We had a blast, we walked sometimes in silence (partly due to the fact that I didn't have a voice for part of the walk), and sometimes in nonstop chatter, we danced, cheered, moaned and groaned, laughed, and cried quite a bit. Aubs put up with my never ending head cold and nose blowing, and even slept in a tent with me and my illness! We even stopped for a couple well deserved pink margaritas around mile 50, such a great idea, our feet felt pretty great after, our bladders not so much! :)
We ended our journey by dancing our way to the finish line to "Push It", yes Salt n Pepa - couldn't have been any more fitting for us! I can not wait to do this again with my BFF!

Here we are ready to take off on Friday morning, 6:30 am, from the Del Mar fairgrounds.
Mile 11, lunch still pretty pumped up!

20 miles down, some seriously tired feet! We were in bed by 9 if not sooner. This is our tent in the background.
A wonderful pick me up, a visit from the family. I don't have all the pics, but Aubrey's kids made her a sweet poster, which of course made her cry and in turn me too. Jakob and Sarah were so cute cheering everyone on. Jakob's poster said "Three Day Walkers Rock", and Sarah's said "Go Free Day Walkers".
Mile 50, basically my wall, I was really feeling the heaviness in the feet and legs here, but with a little rest and motivation by Aubs, I got back up and kept walking. We turned the corner out of this stop and had to walk uphill, oh man that was tuff stuff but at the top were the well earned margaritas!

Finished!! Yay! It was raining and really windy/cold at this time. We are wearing all of our layers under our shirts to stay warm! What a day we had, rain in the morning, sun, wind and then rain again - kinda crazy - just like us I guess!
I can't forget to say that I really appreciate my family for all their support that went into this, the training walk time, the fundraising on my behalf, the helping me find the right socks, the cheering and making of signs, and putting up with my demands - the last minute things I needed to be delivered to camp, and just taking care of the kids during this event. Thank you, thank you, thank you! I had such an amazing time and just feel really special with all the support I was given.