3-Day Journey: Day 2

Our cell phone alarms woke us up at a bleary eyed 4:30am and we pulled our walking clothes on as we mumbled and stumbled our way to the porta potties, coffee and breakfast station. We both had frozen parts of our bodies overnight and our tent was covered with water from the heavy dew that covers the area every night. Let’s just say that after walking 20 miles the day before, sleeping on the ground doesn’t do much for your disposition.

We each downed three cups of coffee and had a big breakfast of eggs, bacon, potatoes and oatmeal we were well fueled and ready to go when the trail opened up at 6am. I think we didn’t really make the trail until 6:30 or 7am. As we trudged along mumbling to ourselves we overheard all kinds of women discussing how they were going to hit the first Starbucks that came into view. Luckily, the Cow Ladies were there to greet us as we walked by so we stopped to take a picture with them.

Along the path Michelle noticed a Panera bakery and we headed over there so she could get herself a pastry for the road and a latte. As we joined up with the rest of the walkers we came across some cute high school girls out there cheering us on from across the street and then we hit McDonalds that gave us cups of coffee, Jamba juice that gave us shots of smoothie and Starbucks that handed out doughnuts and iced tea. That really lifted our spirits since it took me a full mile to warm up my sore feet and get those tendons loosened up. (BTW, we stretched at every stinkin’ stoplight) We also came along a team shirt that had us laughing for while.

We were hurting for this walk. We made it to the second pit stop before realizing it would take everything we had to make it to lunch (the 10 mile mark). Michelle’s knee was hurting and her toe was killing her. My feet were throbbing and it felt like I had rocks in my shoes because my neuromas started swelling up. Those last 2 ½ miles were the worst. We broke out our IPods and stuffed them in our jog bras and stealthily brought the earpiece up to our ear so we could focus on music to help us through. We were not allowed to have IPods so we were totally breaking the rules by doing this.

That lunch pit stop sign was the best thing EVER! It meant we could stop and it was our planned point to stop for the day. We fully intended to save most of our energy and pain tolerance for the Sunday walk. We weren’t going to kill ourselves on Saturday. Lunch was yummy chicken wraps at a beach and then we took some nice buses back to camp.

At camp we lay down in our tents and took our shoes off to survey the damage. Michelle’s right pinkie toe was black and blue and completely swollen. Her knee was killing her and her lower back was not much better. I had a huge nickel sized blister on the side of my heel, a blister on the bottom of my big toe and one on the bottom of another toe. My plantar fasciitis was killing my feet in general and those marbles were getting more and more swollen. We put our feet up for a couple of hours before showering, ate dinner, had some cookies at the Pepperidge Farm tent and then stayed in the tent the rest of the night. Our fellow teammate, Nancy, had brought some pink tuct tape and I used some to try and keep my orthotics stuck to my insert. I believe that when my insert shifted when I was walking it caused the orthotic to rub on my heel which caused that one really bad blister.

When I hit the porta potty that night, I was greeted by this image on the inside of the door which I thought was really funny. Michelle decided to be proactive and she put the other tarp over the tent to try and keep the moisture out of our tent as well as providing some extra shade in the afternoon so we could hit the sack before 8 o’clock.