Day 1: The Finish

I purposely did not wear my watch or check the distance to each pit stop so that I wouldn’t feel hopelessly slow or that there was still soooooo far to go. Shock is the only word to describe the 7.25 hours in which I finished the walk. That equates to exactly a 3 mph pace, the same pace I held all during training. I am surprised given that I felt like I was dragging at some points in the walk. Even more shocking was that I was number 83 to cross the finish line…of 1,900 people. Crazy, how did that happen? This is not a race, this is not a race.

After resting and hydrating, I went in search of my bag and my tent. I had hoped that my tent mate would arrive before me and have the tent all set up. Instead a crew member grabbed my bag out of my hands, took the tent from me, and proceeded to I-36, like in the game Battleship, to set up my contribution to the growing sea of pink tents. A neighbor inflated my mattress and everything was ready for me to crash, except that it was still SO hot. The mattress could hardly be touched.

Finally, I dragged myself to the shower – in the back of a semi truck (in the tent photo, notice the line of trucks on the way back edge of camp). Cool water (my choice), and some pretty smelling body soap left by the SGK folks, made me very happy. It was after this shower, though, that I discovered all the problems. Blisters on my private parts (the medics said I should go commando tomorrow), a huge blister on the side of my right foot (the medics said DO NOT pop it), road rash on my ankles, and a giant vein bulging on the top of my left foot. Why, I would like to know, did I not have these problems while I was training?

P.S. Why the picture of porta potties? They made such a nice pattern and they seemed to follow us everywhere we went. The Medic's mantra "Drink, pee, no IV."