This September I’m participating in the Weekend to End Women’s Cancers. It’s a two day, 60 km walk through the streets of Toronto. My team has been practising hard.
Correction, they have. I haven’t.
I’ve been enjoying summer, eating, drinking and being merry, seemingly oblivious to the fact that in a month I will be walking for two entire days straight.
So today I took my lard ass for a training walk. 15 km was the plan. Turns out after mapping my route when I got home, it was a piddly 8.5 km. I’m screwed. I’ve tried to convince team members that it would be really cute to pull me in a pink wagon. They don’t seem too keen.
Aaaaaaaanyway, today as I walked…alone…without music or anybody to talk to, these are some of the random thoughts that bounced around my head:
- I have a really unusual gait. My right foot randomly shoots out spastically to one side
- I often lose my balance walking in a straight line.
- Why do people passing by in their car ALWAYS stare? Is it my bright pink shoes? It’s probably my wonky gait. I should really be in a circus.
- My shorts are way too short and my legs are far too white.
I HATE walking alone. Not only is it boring, it leaves me with way too much time to think. I can’t avoid my thoughts and worries without tasks to distract me.
- To pass the time, I wrote two blogs in my head but of course, by the time I got home I had completely forgotten what they were about.
- I passed a woman walking with arms wildly flailing and swinging much faster than her legs were moving. It was the oddest thing. And nearly impossible to do. Trust me, after she was out of sight, I tried it. Maybe that’s why drivers were staring. Seriously. Try it. Walk very slowly, but swing your arms 10x as fast. I dare you.
- I also had the pleasure of walking behind a couple for a few blocks. They were wearing matching outfits, from their Tilly hats right down to their matching socks. Please shoot me if my spouse and I ever morph into fashion twins.
- I screamed twice in the course of this walk. Once when I thought I saw a mouse. It was a burr. Again when a jogger rounded a corner in the section of trail I was walking. I’m a little jumpy when walking in the woods alone. I’m afraid of: Bugs (I got bitten right in the forehead by a GIANT horse fly last summer on that same trail), murderers, pervs and now, Hogweed. I’m pretty sure my knee brushed against one (hogweed, not a murderer or perv). I obsessed about it for the rest of the walk, waiting for the burning sensation to kick in.
- Looking down into the ravine as I trudged along, I remembered fondly the days of my childhood spent building forts in the ravine near our house. The neighbourhood kids would spend hours, away from adult eyes, playing in the woods. I’m sad that my own will never have such freedom.
- I came up with a great title for a children’s book. I think that brings me to a grand total of 14 books that I still need to write.
- My hands really swell when I walk. They look like two water balloons at the end of my arms. And I don’t even swing wildly. In fact, I don’t swing my arms much at all. I should work on that. Maybe more swinging will propel me forwards?
- I need to drink a lot of water when I walk or I get a pounding headache. Trouble is, then I have to pee every ten minutes. I was tempted to squat in the trail. But of course, fear of pervs and sitting on a Hogweed stopped me.
My team is attempting a 22km training walk on Saturday. Maybe I’ll run the pink wagon idea past them again. At least I’ll have people to talk to. God knows, being alone with my thoughts just isn’t pretty.
