Changing Directions

I sent the following letter to the members of 3DayTweepsChicago this morning. Now that they have had a chance to settle with the news, I feel the need to share it with all of my Pink People.

Dear Amazing 3Day Tweeps (of the Chicago variety) ~

This is a tough email to write; exciting and sad at the same time.

Number One: After a great deal of contemplation, discussion, research and soul-searching, Matt and I have decided to continue our relationship with The 3Day and we WILL be walking in a fall event. (More on that decision in an upcoming blog post.)

Meanwhile, I have had to face a very difficult decision about Chicago. As many of you know, about a year ago, I began to row crew after decades of longing to give it a try. It has become a very important part of my life. It turns out that the Masters' National Rowing Championships are the same weekend as the Chicago 3Day. Rowing is a new passion in my life, and one which I expect I will be "too old" for within a few short years. Not too old to row, but too old to compete at the level that I currently am capable of. Furthermore, the National Masters' moves each year. Last year was in Oklahoma, next year might be in California. But THIS YEAR it will be in Worcester, MA, only an hour from my own rowing club. I have struggled with "deserting" my Tweeps, but in the end, I really have to push myself and give this rowing thing everything I've got.

A friend wrote this, but it could have been my words:

Rowing. For me, it's the challenge of giving up "self" for a greater good. The powerful experience of the blade cutting into the surface of the water. the movement of the boat. The drive to improve. The pure bliss of a perfect stroke. The humbling reality of a crab. The laughter, the love, the support and caring for one another...The desire to push myself further than what is expected for a sport with the smallest crowds and the least number of wins....and after it is all said and done, to get up, weary and bruised to the bone and do it again and again and again because someday all that will be left is the passion and the desire because the bones will be done, the body finished and the gift of movement will be a distant memory. So for today, I row because I can.

Sounds a lot like walking the 3day, doesn't it?? I am really sad not to share Chicago with the 3DayTweeps, but I feel like I need to do this. The 3Day - and all of you - will still be there next year. I am delighted, though, to be able to tell you that you will be in very good hands. Laura (@ldavis1800) and Julie (@knittingbagel) have agreed to co-captain the team. I had been feeling that the team would be best served with a crew-based captain and a walker-based one, and I am simply delighted that these two incredible Pink People will be heading this team! You couldn’t hope for more dedicated and loving care.

I'm going to be so sad that weekend that I can't be in two places, but you know that my heart will be. I hope you will send me lots of tweets and pictures. I know that the power of Pink will make my boat fly in those races.

love and more love.

Lauri ~ @60milegirl

And just in case any of you are deciding you need to add another city to your roster, Matt and I will be walking in Philly in October, seeing you there would be FANTASTIC.

Tomorrow We Walk

Tomorrow morning, I will be doing something I have done ten times before, but it will also be something I have never done before. Tomorrow, I will head out the door to opening ceremonies for the 3Day Walk for the Cure (aka the 3day walk for breast cancer) Tomorrow I will start the 60-mile journey that is the 3Day. I have walked this 60-mile path ten times before in 5 different cities, including this one. I’ve also crewed 7 times. Later this year I will walk another 3Day and crew another as well. Coming to a 3ay Walk feels like coming home to me. It is comforting and familiar. And yet, here on the eve of this particular 3Day walk, I am filled with uncertainty.

Why the disquiet? This year will be a very different walk for me. This year, my daughter, aka @60miledaughter, is joining me on the walk. Her cousin, @bros4boobies, is along as well. My husband, Matt, who generally walks or crews alongside me, will be crewing, as will my stepson. All this family stuff should be exciting. I am thrilled and honored and proud of each of the young people for making this commitment and for joining us on this adventure. So, again, why do I feel such trepidation about this year’s walk?

I was so excited when my daughter decided to do this with us. She was only seven years old the first time I walked the 3Day. This event has been part of her life growing up. I was so touched that it had come to mean enough to her from the sidelines that she wanted to jump in.

The past year of training together and fundraising has been a rollercoaster I hadn’t expected. Back when she first registered to walk, I saw the future of our walk together as this amazing mother-daughter journey. I imagined the conversations we would share during training. I imagined the tears and the laughter that would pass between us as we prepared for our shared journey. I didn’t actually imagine the arguments we would end up having. I didn’t imagine the miles of training walks when she would wonder aloud how her stepfather and I could possibly stand all this walking. I didn’t imagine how anxious she would become about whether she could do this.

I didn’t imagine any of that because I believe my daughter is an amazing person. She has a heart of gold and is always reaching out to others. She’s one of those people who remains popular among different groups of people, instead of being connected to just one clique. Yes, she can be anxious, but she can also be stubborn and determined. I simply know in my heart that she will do her very best at this thing.

I feel anxious about our walk together over the next three days. I worry, not about whether we will finish, but whether we will still be talking to one another when we do! I worry that our relationship might not be strong enough for this. But then I realize with a big burst that nobody ever knows how strong they are themselves or how strong the bonds in their lives are until they are tested. And this is a test that will have many moments of fun and laughter. Over the next 3 days, we will get to share a lot of great moments. And the tough ones will really not be all that tough.

I walk in memory of my dear friend, Mary Kaye. I also walk in support of a number of survivors who have come into my life. One of the survivors I walk for is my special friend, Diane. Diane is a 2-time breast cancer survivor. I didn’t know her the first time she was diagnosed. But, we were very close when the cancer returned. She bowed to a mastectomy and accepted the treatment to fight hard against this invader. She inspires me with her laughter and her strength.

Five weeks ago, her 32-year old daughter, K, was diagnosed with stage one breast cancer. K’s caution and preventative behavior because of her mother’s cancer probably will save her life. Two weeks ago, K had a procedure to remove a lump from her breast. This week, she had a second procedure because the margins weren’t all clean the first time. Diane has held her own breath and her daughter’s hand at the same time. Diane already knows every step of this journey that her daughter is just starting. This will be something they will share forever. I am heartbroken that Diane has to live through the fear of her child’s cancer. We are all grateful that it was caught early.

As my daughter and I venture off on our 3Day walk together, wondering whether we will make it through and anxious about how it might change our relationship, I simply need to stop what I am doing and reflect on the journey that Diane and her daughter are sharing. Their strength inspires me. If they can face this battle together as boldly as they are, surely my babygirl and I can walk a few miles without caring whether we argue and without it mattering at all if we are bored with one another. Coming to the 3Day will always be coming home. I’m just learning to come home to a different doorway.

That Time of the Year

In honor of three friends who are each having their first mammograms in the next few weeks, I am reposting this blog from last June. It remains as significant as it was then.

Breast Sandwich Anyone?

Last week, I went for my annual mammogram. Some of you are too young, or are underinsured, or are too male, to know what this experience can be like. For you, I will try to elaborate.

Begin by imagining your breast on the most sensitive day of the month (guys, I invite you to substitute any other nerve-laden orb to which you are very closely physically attached). Now take this breast (or other orb) and settle it onto a large, thick, cold sheet of steel. Stand awkwardly as a smiling technician compresses a second steel shelf down onto your tender orb. Stay right there while those two pieces of steel squeeze toward one another until you want to scream and squirm because of the pain. But don’t move! The technician is sweetly explaining that she really needs you to stand very still as she screws those two sheets of steel just a little more snugly together. And so you do stand very still, because this is important. Imagine if you will, that the pain is intense, but just barely tolerable. Now stand perfectly still for about a minute while the image is taken. Finally, you can release the breath you didn’t even realize you were holding as the compression relaxes just a bit.

PHEW, it’s over, or so you think. But now, you need to shift your body just a little and submit that same breast (or other orb – boys!) to more compression in a slightly altered position. Two more images on this side, and then you get to do it all over again with the other one! Each time that those shelves of metal come squeezing your flesh into a shape you didn’t imagine possible, you feel surges of pain radiate down into your fingertips. But finally, it is over. You have survived the experience of submitting your breast (or other orb) to be the filling in a sandwich wherein the bread is the thickest, toughest steel, and the greatest weight imaginable has made your body part into something thinner than a slice of bologna. Fun, huh?

And so, the other day, my annual mammogram behind me, I walked out to my car and sat behind the steering wheel. I breathed deeply for a moment. My chest was burning and my fingertips were still tingling with the sensation of radiated pain. I took a few moments to compose myself to prepare for the drive back to my office. Then I glanced at the clock. The entire ordeal had taken just seventeen minutes.

I started thinking about other women’s pain during their mammogram. And as I sat there, the focus on my own aching chest changed into a reflection on something more. I started to think about what happens when those seventeen minutes are the beginning of fear and hurt, rather than just a painful interruption in one’s day.

I couldn’t help but think about my friend Diane, a two-time survivor. She feels fear for several days after her mammogram, as she waits - holding her breath - for the “clean” report she hopes will come.

I remembered a woman I met on last year’s Walk, who described an odd look in the technician’s eyes, as she proceeded to “just take a few more images”. When we walked together in Philly, she was between chemo and radiation for the cancer that had been discovered through that mammogram.

I thought about the pain of a mammogram when it leads to difficult decisions about chemo, radiation and surgery. Seventeen minutes of compression seems a lot less painful than imagining making the choice to have part of one’s body cut away.
Seventeen minutes of discomfort seemed fairly insignificant as I thought of the family of a woman who was diagnosed too late because she didn’t have insurance for a mammogram. For that family, seventeen minutes that never even happened cost them a lifetime of loving memories.

My mind swirled through example after example, illustrating that my measly seventeen minutes were only worth considering for about seventeen minutes.

This reflection brought to mind the reasons that I keep walking and crewing in the 3Day Walks for Breast Cancer. The funds that I have helped to raise ensure that more women will have mammograms. My fundraising helps to pay for vital research so that mammograms that do lead to frightening diagnoses are more likely to have less frightening outcomes. My footsteps help to support community programs and education. My footsteps are matched by the footsteps, fundraising and hard work of all of the 3Day community. Together, we make an impact that will last way longer than seventeen minutes. Our work will last a lifetime. Our work provides lifetimes. And everyone deserves a lifetime.

If you are over forty, or have a family history of breast cancer, please schedule a mammogram right away. Not all breast cancer can be identified with a mammogram. However, mammograms – combined with regular self-exams – continue to be the most reliable diagnosis tool for catching breast cancer early. And early diagnosis means more survivors. Spending seventeen minutes as the filling in a breast sandwich seems a small price to pay for your health and well-being. Please! Run, don’t walk, to your nearest mammogram center. And then, once you’re finished, walk 60 miles with me in the fight against breast cancer, or support my 60 miles with a donation.

60Mile Daughter Training Notes

I'd like to share with you the next installment from my 17 year old 60MileDaughter. (you can read her first post here) I am so proud of her as she begins seriously training for her first 3Day Walk For the Cure. She is planning to walk with me this summer in Chicago. This past weekend, we took a training walk of "10 miles" together. She was cranky before we started and I began to dread what I had brought upon myself by inviting her to share this. Walking (and crewing) in the 3Day Walks is a precious part of my life. It has been a big part of my life for ten years, and training walks are something I dearly love. Her crankiness seared my heart. I feared what her attitude might do to my own training. My fears were mostly unfounded. Indeed, training with her will be very different than training with Matt (60MileHusband) has been. It will be very different than training alone my first year. It will be very different than training with friends has been. BUT it will be an amazing experience for both of us and I am excited to move into this new adventure.
Read on, in her words, and "hear" about her first big training walk.
**
Yesterday I walked out the door with my parents, decked out and ready to spend the day walking. It was all planned out, as my stepfather has warned me – “make sure your mother maps it out beforehand so it really is the length she promises.”
Ten miles, mapped out with a lunch break half-way through, I can do this, I thought … maybe. Five steps in I was already complaining, there was no way I could do ten miles, let alone twenty miles for three days in a row. Yet somewhere along the way, something clicked for me. I can walk, I can put one foot in front of the other and I can make it. Not for myself and not simply for the sake of saying I can do it, but because not everyone can. I am walking sixty miles in three days for those we have lost to breast cancer and for those we don’t want to ever lose.
I returned home from our walk and mapped the route for myself --- 11.5 miles! My feet were sore and my legs were tired, but I had done more than I thought I could, way more. Today I feel fine, tired muscles but not in pain.
All I want to do is walk, I want to go out there and push forward again, and walk until I don’t think I can walk any further, and then keep on walking a little more. I want to walk because at the end of each walk there is another chance, and the feeling that I really can make a difference.

I can’t do it on my own though.
I have my mom cheering me onward, reminding me of the little kids who will for cheer me on during the three days. I’ll hear them yelling “Thank you for helping my mommy”. I have my mom telling me of the tears I will cry and the memories I will make and never forget. I have my friends congratulating me on another mile walked, and telling me it is fine that I can’t spend time with them today, they understand. The walking is more important.
And I have you, supporting me in the most important way. You are supporting the fundraising, the reason I am pushing for more miles. I may be walking to raise awareness, but you are listening and supporting me.
I would like to thank those of you who have helped me so far in this long journey to come, and for those of you who haven’t it’s not too late. Your donation in any amount helps. We’re also selling t-shirts for a $16 donation if that better suits. I thank you for anything and everything.
Thank you again,


Aliza Majewski
Make your donation PLEASE visit my website now.

Proud Mother

I haven't written a blog post in a long time, since my most recent 3Day last October. Now that things are gearing up for the new season, my mind is on all things 3Day, and I am ready to start writing along with all my other training and preparing. However, today's post isn't written by me. Today I am sharing my daughter's fundraising letter. This summer, she will be walking in her first 3Day For the Cure. I am so proud of her I could burst.
Here is her letter:
***
Ten years ago this coming May I watched my mother in her first 3Day Walk for Breast Cancer. She walked sixty miles in three days. I saw how hard she worked to train and to raise money, and how dedicated she was to the cause. My family has experienced breast cancer. We have lost dear friends and cried tears of joy when other friends have survived. That first year, 2001, my mom met my step-father Matt. Since then, they have walked and crewed in the 3Day Walk for Breast Cancer each year. Each year, they have participated in this event so that hopefully one day we can live in a world where no one has to go through the pain and suffering that too many people in this world have experienced. This year I turned sixteen, and this year I can do more than just support my parents as they work for this goal. I can do more than drive to Chicago to cheer them on. I can do more than drive to Boston in snow and sleet in the middle of May to give them dry clothes because they are unwilling to give up. This year, with their dedication in my heart, I can do more. In August of 2011 I will be walking sixty miles in three days in Chicago during the Susan G. Komen Walk for a Cure. I have a lot of work ahead of me. Ever since I was six I have heard my mom talk about how the commitment is like a part time job. You have to train and train hard, you have to build up strength and endurance, and you have to raise $2,300 for this amazing cause.
The Susan G. Komen 3Day Walks for the Cure raise millions of dollars to help research cures and to support those who are suffering. Thousands of people participate in each of the 15 walks in different cities. I have chosen Chicago. My parents have both walked and crewed this walk, and I have walked along the trail cheering sore walkers along, thanking them for what they are doing. After the 2010 walk, my older cousin called me up and said he wanted to walk, but he wanted me with him. After a few days of back and forth I realized that I was being silly. I had suffered with my family; I had supported people when they needed it most. I held my mother’s hand as she sobbed over one of her absolutely closest friend’s fight. She fought this disease to, sadly, not make it through. I called my cousin back, and told him to grab his sneakers because we were going to Chicago.
I am writing this letter, not to tell my life story, but to ask for help in this battle. Help me help others, and let us try to stop this tragic disease from hurting more families. Any donation helps, the more we raise, the more opportunities there are to solve the mystery of breast cancer.
Thank you for your help,

Aliza Majewski
www.the3day.org/goto/alizamajewski2011

Every Mug Deserves a Lifetime

Yesterday was a pretty challenging day. A lot of stuff has happened all in one day.

It all started in the morning. One of my first thoughts of the day was a sense of super happy excitedness. Why? Because 3DayMug was scheduled to arrive at my office. For those of you not in this particular loop, I'll try to explain. 3DayMug is a mug. She is a very special mug. She was created and painted by 3Day Walker and fellow online ambassador, Kristen Cincotta. Through a series of entertaining Twitter-universe moments, Mug became a bit of a 3Day celebrity. Mug even has a facebook page and her own Twitter account. As part of her celebrity, Kristen has made arrangements to make it possible for Mug to participate in a large number of this season's 3Day events, escorted by walkers and crew from among the 3DayTweeps.

So, there I was, feeling particularly excited because Mug was making her way to my office so that she could come to Washington, DC with me and Matt to walk this weekend. My friend, Heather, even helped me out by making some really cute buttons for me to give to walkers who get their picture taken with Mug.

Okay, so when did my day change? I left my office for a little while. I came back and saw that a box had arrived for me. I got wicked excited. I carefully unwrapped Mug and introduced her around my office. I set her up for a little photo shoot so that I could announce on Twitter that she had made it safely to Massachusetts. I took a nice picture.


I picked up the box she was in and then something horrible went wrong. I don't even know how it happened, but suddenly there was a crash and Mug was on the floor. I shouted a word that one is not supposed to shout in one's office. Loudly. A few times. And then I cried a minute. And then I picked her up. Mug's handle had broken in three places.



I let Kristen know right away. I spent the afternoon depressed that I had harmed this Mug that has come to mean so much to so many walkers. That part has been really tough, and I am very good at beating myself up. I spent a bunch of hours focusing on all the people who kept Mug safe and what a lousy job I have done. It helps a lot that Kristen reminded me right away that it was an accident and it was bound to happen. I just really hate that it happened "on my watch". I feel like a careless lummox. But I set the self-loathing aside and focused on helping Mug. I spent the evening repairing Mug.


Her handle is now intact, although I am concerned as to how she will manage if she is held by said handle. And I really don't think she could hang from a beaner on someone's waist pack while they walk, as was planned. I have also inspected her and discovered a small crack on her body. She's been through a lot today, and she will require a lot of special care-taking to get her through the rest of the season.

THEN...
I stood back and looked at Mug, all repaired and ready to continue her 3Day adventure in DC and I had a flash of clarity. It was as though I could see the whole thing through her eyes. Here's what I think the day felt like to Mug starting with when she fell to the floor:

......
OUCH! After sitting on the sidelines of this breast cancer event for a few months, I suddenly feel like I might understand what it means to be diagnosed with breast cancer. A minute ago I was fine, and then suddenly this Thing happened to me. I will never be the same. I lay there on the floor with my handle in pieces and I thought, "Why do bad Things happen to Good Mugs? Why me? Why not that old thermos on the desk? Why did this happen to a sweet pretty young Mug like me?"

I couldn't wallow in self pity though because I was suddenly involved in my own treatment. Before I knew what was happening, I was laying on a cold counter exposed to a bright light. I was being poked and prodded and examined and I didn’t feel like I had any real say in what was going to happen next. All I know is that I was thinking, “Please just do whatever you have to do to make me feel whole again.” And then, before I really even knew what was happening, I was being treated with a stinky chemical mess. The people kept poking at me and telling me to stay perfectly still. I was frightened and wondering what was going to happen, and still they kept coming at me with more chemicals. I’m starting to think that super glue and chemo have a lot in common. The people who were poking at me kept muttering platitudes like, “It’s going to be just fine. Don’t worry, we’re taking good care of you.” And yet at the same time, I could see in their eyes a look of deep concern that maybe things weren’t going as smoothly as they’d hoped.

I felt like time had no real meaning while I was lying there for treatment. I kept thinking about all the things I still want to do with my life. I thought about the walks I want to be carried on. I thought about the people I care about and want to see again – Mom, Aunt Julie, the girls from the ATL training walks. I thought about all the people I still haven’t met and all the places I still haven’t seen. I know I am just a Mug, but I want more time and I am scared that because of this Thing, I am not going to have it.

I came through the reconstructive surgery pretty well. I don’t look quite as young as I did before the Thing happened. And maybe one side of me isn’t even with the other anymore, but you would only notice if you stared at me. It’s time to move on to the next stage. I’m ready to walk in the DC 3Day now. I’m going to need a lot of support and folks are going to have to be extra careful with me. I’ve been through a lot, you know.

Thank goodness nobody tried to say "Don't worry, Mug. After this, you will be as good as new." Because I won't be as good as new. I will never be the same Mug as I was before this happened. My whole body has changed because of this; and so has who I am. But I am stronger because I have survived this Thing.

I AM A SURVIVOR NOW! I am ready to head to DC now. I am ready to cheer on the walkers and thank the crew. I am totally ready to stand proud and strong with all the other survivors. Look out for me - I’ll be the one in pink!

Tell Them I Said Yes to Life

For the past week, I’ve been heading to my friend’s house after dinner and giving him a shot. Yup, that’s what I said. And no, I don’t mean I would drive over there and pour him some whiskey. I mean an injection, pharmaceutical-type, legally prescribed by a surgeon.

My friend, Joe, recently had surgery and needed a daily injection of an anti-coagulant. His doctor suggested that this was something easily taken care of at home, if he could find someone comfortable doing it. Having given injections before, and being not at all queasy about needles, I volunteered. I might have more than volunteered. I might have said something about being honored if he would give me the chance to be his care-provider. And that is the truth about how it felt. Joe's been through a lot of health challenges in the past couple years, and I felt fortunate to be able to lighten his emotional load even just a little bit.

And so, each evening for a week, I gave Joe a shot in his leg and then sat on his couch and visited. Each night when I got up to leave, either he or his partner (or both) would thank me and ask, “are you sure it’s not too much?” I’d shake my head in disbelief and reassure him that it was, indeed, nowhere near too much. Bottom line is that I am grateful to have had the chance to help him in this small way. I am grateful to offer him support. That’s what friends are for. When friendship really works, that’s what friends do. They say yes.

There’s a hymn I know, written by Alicia S. Carpenter, which resonates for me. Here is the first stanza:

Just as long as I have breath, I must answer, 'Yes' to life;
though with pain I made my way, still with hope I meet each day.
If they ask what I did well, tell them I said, 'Yes', to life

It’s why I walk and crew in the 3Day for the Cure – because saying “yes to life” is the thing I want to do well. It’s why I work diligently year-round to keep raising money for the fight against breast cancer – because it is how I can meet each day with hope. It is why I believe that helping my friends and family can come before anything else – because saying yes builds connections, and connections are what keep us strong. I say yes because I feel a strong responsibility to do so. I keep saying yes because I can.

Twelve years ago, through a mutual friend, I met Mary Kay. We talked on the phone before we met in person, and right away I felt that I had found someone who was going to be a part of my life forever. When we met face to face, we hugged immediately. I remember the moment clearly. I walked down to meet the boat that she was arriving on. I saw her walking towards me, her arm around a boy who was smiling and laughing with my own son. She looked up and our glances caught one another. I smiled inquiringly towards her and she nodded emphatically and she yelled out loud, “YES! Yes, I am who you are looking for!” It sounds a bit like romantic comedy when I write it that way, but it was just simple heart-filled friendship from the very start. Mary Kay and I had three years as friends before I lost her to breast cancer. But that premonition that I had that she would be part of my life forever? THAT was so very true.

I say yes to life, because Mary Kay isn’t here to do it anymore. Mar said yes to my friendship. She said yes to being a fabulous parent. She even said yes to being a fabulous parent when she became a single parent suddenly when she lost her husband to pancreatic cancer. She said yes when they said she could try to fight her breast cancer. She said yes when the doctors finally said it was time to stop trying. She said yes to planning the lives her children would have to live without her by their sides. She said yes to everything in her life. And when she had to, she said yes to saying goodbye. She said yes, even to the things she didn’t want, but didn’t have a choice about.

Sure, sometimes the fact that I say yes means that I don’t have time to keep my house as clean as I’d like. And sometimes all the yeses I have said mean that I don’t have time to hide in the basement and make a basket. And sometimes all my yeses mean that I don’t get around to writing my blog. But while all those things aren’t happening, and aren’t getting done, something amazing IS getting done. I am saying yes to life. And so, the next time that I am feeling angry and frustrated about something I haven’t gotten done, I promise myself to stop and think about all the things I am getting done. Like giving a friend something he really needed and didn’t really want.

What We Leave Behind

It’s been almost a month since I held my sneakers aloft during the Chicago 3Day closing ceremony. During those weeks, I have spent 22 hours driving home and countless more hours than that getting caught up with laundry and at my job. We’ve been fundraising and training for The3Day in DC in October. My daughter and my husband have headed back to school. But in amongst all that, I just keep thinking about everything we left behind in Chicago. By “WE”, I mean the walkers and crew of the Chicago 3Day for the Cure.

We left behind a message of hope and dozens of yards of pink crepe paper and ribbons. We left behind 4.3 million dollars raised to make a difference in the fight to find a cure for breast cancer. We left behind smiling young people cheering along 60 miles of sidewalks. We left behind funding for underprivileged women in a city that really needed us. We left behind incredible memories and a powerful message that kindness really can make a difference in the world.

But in the weeks since the Chicago 3Day, I have been reflecting with sadness on something else we left behind. This was my 17th 3Day event, and every time, I am startled anew by what is left behind on Sunday morning. Piles of tarps and sleeping bags and air mattresses get left behind. Mountains of things that the people of the cities we have walked through could definitely use. Sometimes I find it painful to walk out of camp on that final morning because I have seen sneakers left abandoned – sneakers that I realize don’t have enough life in them for a 3Day walker, but that definitely have enough life for the man on the corner begging for spare change to buy some food. Every time that I pack up my stuff on that last day, I am startled by the numbers of tarps left behind by walkers and crew too tired or too dazed to squeeze them into their bags. There are enough tarps left behind in a 3Day camp to build a small tent-city for a homeless community. There are enough tarps and sleeping bags to cover all the children left homeless by last year’s earthquake in Haiti. Enough sleeping bags for all the low-income girl scouts in any city I have ever walked in. The possibilities seem endless. What so many people treat as trash can really be someone else’s live-saving treasure.

Each time that we walk or crew, Matt and I leave extra space in our luggage. On Day3, we load up with tarps that are piling up by the trashcans and we bring them home with us. We donate them to shelters in our home area. After the Chicago 3Day this year, we shipped 32 tarps in perfect condition to Haiti with a friend who was traveling there. Maybe we didn’t change the world, but at least those 32 tarps went to a good cause rather than to a landfill. In Boston this year, a local Eagle Scout made announcements at dinner about collecting leftover supplies on Day3. He made all the arrangements to pick up and then donate the goods to shelters in the area.

There are so many ways to make a difference. I’m hoping that by speaking up today, I can encourage those walkers and crew who are getting ready for the events in the coming three months to give serious thought to what is being left behind.
Here are some ways that you can make a difference:
1. Do not leave any of your own stuff behind;
2. Make plans to take a few extra items with you and donate them to a worthy cause in your own backyard (or just keep them and use them yourself, at least they won’t go to a landfill!);
3. Make plans with a local shelter for them to come to Camp on closing morning to pick up leftovers;
4. Inspire a local scout or community service organization to contact The3Day and make a big plan to make a big difference;
5. Get creative and think of some way to take all those worthwhile items and pay it forward.

It is true that we – the walkers and crew of The3Day – are definitely making a difference in the fight against breast cancer. But that doesn’t have to mean that we forget to make a difference in other fights in our world.

Great Day to be Alive

This morning, I had the privilege of being present at the memorial service for a woman I have known my whole life. Although I had known her since my childhood, I learned more about her at this memorial through the words and stories told by her daughters, who are my peers and friends. I heard the most incredible words in the stories that they told about their mom.

Both daughters remarked that they really couldn’t recall a day of their lives that their mom didn’t say these words:
“It’s a great day to be alive, isn’t it?”

Those words resonated for me. After all, isn’t that exactly why I walk and crew in the 3Day for the Cure? We each should always be grateful for and reminded that life is short, and life – every day of it – is a gift. Although I have been walking and crewing in the 3Day walks for 9 years now, I can sometimes lose touch with the very basic reason that we walk. We walk because we are the ones who can. We walk in memory of friends lost. We walk in honor of survivors fighting. We walk for the daughters we are glad to know are healthy. We walk in the hope that someday nobody will worry about losing their loved one to this disease. But really, that simple message sums it all up. We walk BECAUSE IT IS A GREAT DAY TO BE ALIVE.

So, there I was, heading into the afternoon with that thought bouncing around in my head. And off I went with my 16 year old daughter so she could practice highway driving. About half an hour into things, another car merged onto the highway without yielding and we were hit on the passenger side. I’ve never actually been in a moving car in an accident, and it was pretty frightening. I saw the accident coming and there was little I could do to stop it. My daughter, with only 4 months of driving experience, reacted exactly right, and she probably saved our lives. She didn’t swerve into the next lane where we would definitely have been collided into, spun badly around or worse. She didn’t slam on her brakes in a panic causing us to be rear-ended at highway speeds. She remained calm enough to slow us down into a gentle collision. Sure the merging car crashed into us. And yes, we were all shook up and both cars sustained damage. But it could have been so much worse.

And there it was, clear as the squashed up quarter-panel and the badly bent passenger doorframe. Clear as the light of day that we all walked away into.

It is a great day to be alive. Every. Single. Day.

More Memories

After recording a video sharing my “Favorite 3-Day Moment” with John of 60Miles, I started reflecting on more favorite memories. Here’s another favorite memory, this one from crewing in 2005.

In 2005, Matt and I were crewing the Boston 3Day. The weather was icky: it was cool and rainy and windy. By the end of the day, our pants were stuck to our skin and our throats were hoarse from cheering and breathing in the raw New England air all day. Pouring water and Gatorade all day in the dreary grey day didn’t dampen the spirits in our Pit Stop and we were still laughing as we rode our van back into camp. Once back in camp, we were met by chaos as the announcement had been made that Tent City was being replaced with indoor housing. Our home for the night was an old army base, and walkers were being housed in one building and crew in another. The big dining tent and the shower trucks were set up near the walker’s building, across the compound from where crew were being housed. It took a while to get our bearings. Once we figured out where we needed to be, it was just another 3-Day adventure.

We found our gear and showered and explored the halls of our camp-for-the-night. Finally, we were settling down to our corner of the gymnasium before going to get dinner. It was about 7:30 and I was really starting to feel effects of being on the go for more than 14 hours. I stretched out on the sleeping bag for a moment and looked over to see another woman nearby. I smiled and said hello. She was hunkered down into her sleeping bag. She looked tiny and worn down. I asked her what crew she was on and she told us that she was actually a walker, but was staying in the crew building to be with her partner, but he was still working. She was cold and exhausted and said she needed to rest before she could even think about walking across the camp to get dinner. I looked over at Matt and knew we were sharing the same thought. I smiled broadly and told her to close her eyes and rest and that I was sure she’d feel better soon.

Matt and I walked across camp, collected everything we needed, and brought her a big tray of hot dinner that she could eat right there. She was so thankful for her dinner in bed that she kept calling us her angels. We didn’t know then that she was a survivor. We didn’t know then that she had just barely finished chemo treatment. We didn’t know then that she wasn’t going to see her partner for another 4 hours as his crew was called into overtime hours. We didn’t know then that she was probably close enough to dehydration that the walk to the dining tent would have knocked her out.

All we knew then was that she was more tired than we were and that we could give her what she needed. We sat with her while she ate and then said goodnight as we finally made our way to the tent for our own supper. My own dinner tasted especially good that night; and the sleep I had that night on the floor of that gym was particularly restful. People say that helping others is it’s own reward. Crewing the 3-Day is certainly a tribute to that concept. But bringing dinner to the walker that night went far beyond walker and crew; and it had deeper meaning than just how we treat one another during the 3-Day.

It all comes down to this: if you can do something for someone else, is there really ever any reason not to?

Countdown Time

I’ve been enjoying the tweets the past few days from folks getting ready to walk in the Boston 3-Day next month. The message winging about states something along the lines of: “in one month, I will be walking in the Boston 3-Day”. It is exciting stuff to be at the countdown to the big event. As I read those comments, I started to think about the next step. If you will be walking 4 weeks from now (or 6 weeks, or 8, or whatever your own countdown is), what will you be doing 4 weeks and THREE DAYS from now? I’m encouraging you to think ahead and plan for the moments after your 3-day. What will you be doing to keep your spirit of the 3-day alive?

Whether you walk or you crew, those three days are going to be swirling with physical challenges and teeming with emotional moments. For three days, you will be pushing yourself to be the best person within you. You will be cheering for everyone around you; and you will be cheered on for every step you take and every box you lift. It’s a wonderful world – the 3-Day.
You have probably started to plan for what you will do at the end of those three in terms of the logistics; such as who will you pick you up at closing and how you will get home. Next, I strongly urge you to think about what you will do to hold onto the sense of the 3-day. A community bonded together is something we all need to feel every day of our lives. The power of a group of people who spend all their hours dedicated to a single purpose contains the energy to change the world. If only we could bottle that energy, we will be poised to make a difference in every life we touch.

So, think about how you can bottle up that energy and carry it with you. Be prepared for a little sense of let-down when you leave the 3-day community and head back into your “real life”. But if you plan ahead for this big shift, hopefully you will be ready to carry the energy with you and keep going out into the world, ready to make a difference every day.

During the 3-day, I try to look around and notice all the different people who have banded together in this common goal. I focus on how many different ages there are, and different places we have all come from. By absorbing into my mind the wide range of people that are together during the 3-day, I find that when I get into the ‘real world’, I am able to trust and believe that those people, and that strength of community is still there. In knowing and trusting that those good people are still around me every day, I am poised to remember to do good things for other people every day.

When you get back into ‘the world’, carry the 3-Day community with you. Cheer for that coworker who offers to bring coffee to work. Embrace your friend who takes care of your pets when you go away. Hold the door open for a stranger. Praise your partner for emptying the dishwasher. Life is a challenge every day, and harnessing the power of the 3-day spirit will help you make it a better world for yourself and everyone around you.

Breast Sandwich Anyone?

Last week, I went for my annual mammogram. Some of you are too young, or are underinsured, or are too male, to know what this experience can be like. For you, I will try to elaborate.

Begin by imagining your breast on the most sensitive day of the month (guys, I invite you to substitute any other nerve-laden orb to which you are very closely physically attached). Now take this breast (or other orb) and settle it onto a large, thick, cold sheet of steel. Stand awkwardly as a smiling technician compresses a second steel shelf down onto your tender orb. Stay right there while those two pieces of steel squeeze toward one another until you want to scream and squirm because of the pain. But don’t move! The technician is sweetly explaining that she really needs you to stand very still as she screws those two sheets of steel just a little more snugly together. And so you do stand very still, because this is important. Imagine if you will, that the pain is intense, but just barely tolerable. Now stand perfectly still for about a minute while the image is taken. Finally, you can release the breath you didn’t even realize you were holding as the compression relaxes just a bit.

PHEW, it’s over, or so you think. But now, you need to shift your body just a little and submit that same breast (or other orb – boys!) to more compression in a slightly altered position. Two more images on this side, and then you get to do it all over again with the other one! Each time that those shelves of metal come squeezing your flesh into a shape you didn’t imagine possible, you feel surges of pain radiate down into your fingertips. But finally, it is over. You have survived the experience of submitting your breast (or other orb) to be the filling in a sandwich wherein the bread is the thickest, toughest steel, and the greatest weight imaginable has made your body part into something thinner than a slice of bologna. Fun, huh?

And so, the other day, my annual mammogram behind me, I walked out to my car and sat behind the steering wheel. I breathed deeply for a moment. My chest was burning and my fingertips were still tingling with the sensation of radiated pain. I took a few moments to compose myself to prepare for the drive back to my office. Then I glanced at the clock. The entire ordeal had taken just seventeen minutes.

I started thinking about other women’s pain during their mammogram. And as I sat there, the focus on my own aching chest changed into a reflection on something more. I started to think about what happens when those seventeen minutes are the beginning of fear and hurt, rather than just a painful interruption in one’s day.

I couldn’t help but think about my friend Diane, a two-time survivor. She feels fear for several days after her mammogram, as she waits - holding her breath - for the “clean” report she hopes will come.

I remembered a woman I met on last year’s Walk, who described an odd look in the technician’s eyes, as she proceeded to “just take a few more images”. When we walked together in Philly, she was between chemo and radiation for the cancer that had been discovered through that mammogram.

I thought about the pain of a mammogram when it leads to difficult decisions about chemo, radiation and surgery. Seventeen minutes of compression seems a lot less painful than imagining making the choice to have part of one’s body cut away.
Seventeen minutes of discomfort seemed fairly insignificant as I thought of the family of a woman who was diagnosed too late because she didn’t have insurance for a mammogram. For that family, seventeen minutes that never even happened cost them a lifetime of loving memories.

My mind swirled through example after example, illustrating that my measly seventeen minutes were only worth considering for about seventeen minutes.

This reflection brought to mind the reasons that I keep walking and crewing in the 3Day Walks for Breast Cancer. The funds that I have helped to raise ensure that more women will have mammograms. My fundraising helps to pay for vital research so that mammograms that do lead to frightening diagnoses are more likely to have less frightening outcomes. My footsteps help to support community programs and education. My footsteps are matched by the footsteps, fundraising and hard work of all of the 3Day community. Together, we make an impact that will last way longer than seventeen minutes. Our work will last a lifetime. Our work provides lifetimes. And everyone deserves a lifetime.

If you are over forty, or have a family history of breast cancer, please schedule a mammogram right away. Not all breast cancer can be identified with a mammogram. However, mammograms – combined with regular self-exams – continue to be the most reliable diagnosis tool for catching breast cancer early. And early diagnosis means more survivors. Spending seventeen minutes as the filling in a breast sandwich seems a small price to pay for your health and well-being. Please! Run, don’t walk, to your nearest mammogram center. And then, once you’re finished, walk 60 miles with me in the fight against breast cancer.

Connections Really Count

Earlier this week, I responded to a friend request on www.DailyMile.com. In case you haven’t visited DailyMile, it is an awesome website that provides a fun format within which to track miles walked/run/swam, etc. At DailyMile you can also watch, motivate and inspire your friends in their own training. On the DailyMile site, people can search for you by name, exercise type, interests and group, and they request your friendship. The other day, I received a friend request from a walker named Pam. When I see a new friend request on my page, I like to look at the requester’s profile to determine our connection. Most of the requests I get are either from people I know in “real life”, or they are 3Day walkers. Pam was one of the latter.

I replied to Pam’s friend request, welcoming her to the 3Day community and acknowledging that I was looking forward to following her training. The message I sent to Pam was pretty much the same one that I have written to welcome other walkers on DailyMile. But something different happened this time. Pam responded right away and we started a dialogue. She mentioned that she was a first-timer and that she was hoping DailyMile would help her to be more motivated in her training. She lamented that she was having some trouble staying motivated; and that she is far away from the rest of her teammates. I encouraged her to follow @the3day and various 3-Day walkers on Twitter, to read the blogs of the online ambassadors, and to “like” the 3Day on facebook. Pam wrote that, up until this point, she had mostly been using facebook to connect to the event. She also told me that although she had a twitter username, she wasn’t using it. I asked her if she’d like me to inquire among my cyber friends whether there were other walkers in her city that she might hook up with. She thought that sounded great.

What happened next was a cyber-storm of activity. My plea for support for my new friend was met with a flurry of affirmative responses, including a few offers from walkers in her city asking for her contact information so that they could reach out to her. Before I could even tell Pam about this development, I realized that she was now following me on Twitter. So I tweeted her a big welcoming ‘shout out’. And the rest, as you sometimes hear, was history. Within a few hours, Pam was tweeting with more 3Day walkers than she could keep track of. I was shaking my head in amazement and joy when, just two hours after I had suggested she start ‘tweeting’, she was making plans with walkers in her area to meet for a training walk. Should I chalk it up to the wonders of cyber communication? Yes, but even moreso, I need to chalk it up to the wonders of the 3Day community!

The intense rapidness of connection that happened between Pam and her new community of local walker friends has a lot in common with how connections happen on the actual event. Imagine this: maybe I’m walking and I meet another walker. She tells me that she’s new to the 3Day and shares her story with me. I listen and I realize that she has a lot in common with someone I met in the dinner tent the night before. As we approach the next Rest Stop, I see the friend from dinner and I call out to her. I introduce my two new friends and they immediately start sharing stories. My dinner friend shouts out to her three teammates to join us, and now the six of us are walking out from the rest stop getting to know one another and making connections that will last miles into our future. Before we know it, our conversation has eaten away at ten more miles. The power of the3Day community has fueled our afternoon and kept us motivated and strong. This is what happens on The3Day, and it happens over and over again, all day long, for three beautiful days. To witness this same magical connectedness happen on my computer screen inspired me to believe that the power of the 3Day is alive every day.

Moments That Make Memories

John of www.60miles3days.com recently asked me if I would be videotaped talking about my “favorite 3Day moment”. I said yes, but with trepidation. My concern wasn’t about being videotaped – I’m not particularly shy and I love to tell a good story. The fear factor is at the idea of trying to come up a single favorite moment. After 9 years of walking and crewing in the 3Day Walks for Breast Cancer, I don’t feel like I can come up with just one favorite moment! However, I gave the question a lot of thought and am now excited to share one of my favorite moments with John on video. We're supposed to tape it tonight, and I hope it goes as well as I expect it will!

Meanwhile, I started to think about the question from a new angle – are they favorite moments or favorite memories? That might just seem like semantics, and it possibly is, but I have started to think about the two different sides of the question. There are favorite 3Day memories, and there are favorite 3Day moments. By my way of thinking, favorite memories are things that I remember from my own 3Day experiences. Everyone in the 3Day family has these memories, they pile up like old snapshots, but far more precious. Each 3Day memory is unique and personal, and belongs to the person with the memory, although s/he is always ready to share the memories with others.

Favorite 3Day moments, on the other hand, belong to everyone in the 3Day family. A 3Day Moment is a moment that is part of the event. It is a thread that carries us from one event to the next. These moments are common property and have a texture to them through which we connect to one another. From these moments, 3Day memories are built within each individual’s experience. For example, there is the moment in every 3Day – every year in every city - during Closing Ceremony, when all the participants take off their sneakers and raise them towards heaven in a salute to the survivors among us. This is a shared 3Day moment. But I – and probably every other walker and crew – have a different memory of this moment from each different event. There it is: a moment versus a memory.

All this musing has led me is to reflect on some of my favorite 3Day moments, and I present them here as just glimpses – sort of a slide show of moments. For the veterans among us, I encourage you to attach memories to each of these moments, enriching the slide show as it passes through you. And for the first-timers, I invite you to sit back and enjoy the show. Soon these moments will be yours.
Here goes:
- Arriving pre-dawn to a parking lot swirling with shades of pink and being greeted by smiling crew waiting to sweep my bag out of my arms,
- Listening to the words of opening ceremony and crying openly while holding hands with the stranger next to me,
- Weeping as the flags are carried into opening ceremony,
- Miles of stories shared along three days of walking,
- Coming around a final corner at the end of a long day to view a sea of pink tents,
- Walking through neighborhoods filled with welcoming and supportive signs and cheerleaders of all ages,
- Making new friends while waiting in line for a porta-potty,
- Spaghetti Friday night which is The. Best. Spaghetti. Ever.,
- Cheering for walkers as they come into camp,
- Weeping openly watching a ‘bald’ walker cross the end line,
- Cheering till my throat hurts for the crew,
- Cheering till my throat hurts for the walkers,
- Holding my sneakers high in the air,
- Hugging new friends goodbye,
- Wishing I could start the three days all over again.

These are the moments that make the memories that fill my heart with a passion for The3Day. I can't wait to make more memories.

Walking in the Rain Part Two

As I wrote about in yesterday’s post, Matt & I had scheduled a training walk for yesterday evening. In the morning, it seemed fairly definite that it was going to rain down on us. We decided that our training was important, and that we wouldn't melt if we walked in a little rain. I wrote yesterday about some of the ways that walking in the rain is pretty insignificant when measured against the importance of what we are walking for.

After work, when we met to head out for our training walk, it wasn’t raining. In fact, the sun was shining and it was getting steamy. I decided to go with my lightweight windbreaker, rather than the heavy rain jacket and rain pants. About 2 miles into the walk, we were not only still dry, we were actually getting hot. I commented on the heat and we laughed at the irony of the post I had written that morning; and then the skies laughed back at us and let loose a torrent of rain and thunder that had my pants soaked through in mere minutes.

We walked another 5 miles in the rain. Not only did my pants soak through, so did my windbreaker. But we walked on and stayed upbeat. The focus of my blog post from the morning really helped. After all, it is easy to keep going when you have an end in sight. We both knew that all we had to do was walk in wet clothes for about an hour and then we would be home to take hot showers and relax over a warm supper. I can do anything for an hour when there is a happy ending in sight.

Our positive attitude was rewarded doubly about ½ mile from the end of the walk, when I glanced off to the east and saw a magnificent rainbow spanning the horizon above the trees. Yesterday’s training walk was a lot like my dedication to The 3Day. We really do need keep walking, and we need to keep crewing and we need to keep fundraising and we need to keep reminding people about this important cause. If we just keep going, the reward will come. Yesterday, our reward was a rainbow at the end of our training walk. Someday it will be a world without breast cancer.

Walking in the Rain

It’s raining out there! Waking up takes a little bit longer on mornings like this – the sky is glazed with grey and the sunlight that usually streams in my bedroom window is diffused and weak. Generally, I’m a fan of rain. In summertime, rainstorms remind me of childhood – when we would run outside into the rain seeking puddles to stomp through. Even now, as an adult, mid-summer thunderstorms are a joy that I share with my children and we laugh and dance around the yard until our clothing sticks to our skin.

But today, the rain is triggering a different thought, one as grey as the sky itself. That thought? “I’m going to walk in this pouring rain.” Today, after work, Matt and I have planned for an 8-mile walk. Training for a 3-day/60-mile walk takes a lot of time. It takes many hours every week. It takes scheduling finesse to fit all those hours around full-time jobs and parenting and taking care of our home. Our walk is still almost 4 months away, and yet we are “supposed” to walk about 20 miles this week to stay on track with our training. This is my 9th year walking in The 3-Day Walk for Breast Cancer, and I have learned over the years how incredibly important it is to train, train, train. And so, recognizing the importance of training, we schedule our walks carefully to fit everything we must do into our busy lives.

So, here’s the thing. Today it is raining. And today we are going to go for a walk that will take 2-3 hours. Because we are in training, and we have to make 20 miles fit into our week, we will be walking in the rain. It’s not just rainy, it is also colder than usual for June. But we’re walking anyway. We’ll dress warmly, and we’ll don our rain pants and rain jackets and we’ll suck it up. Cause here’s the thing about training for The 3Day Walk for Breast Cancer: it’s just a walk. After all, at the end of our 8 miles, when we are cold and wet, we will come home, drink hot tea and take hot showers. Even if we were “on event”, we would still do those things (and then sleep in a tent). But through all of it, it’ll still be just a walk. It won’t be cancer. I won’t be facing frightening treatment options. I won’t be watching my hair fall out. I won’t be waiting for a surgeon to decide whether I will keep my breast. I won’t be facing cancer. I’ll just be getting a little wet.

Get out there and walk, no matter what weather you are facing. It is just a walk. So, we’re gonna just keep going – rain or shine.

Sense of Purpose

Recently, I celebrated a very special anniversary. I call it a ‘walkaversary’. Nine years ago, I participated in my first 3Day Walk for Breast Cancer. On that first 3Day Walk, I met a particularly friendly walker who is now my husband. That’s probably reason enough to celebrate!

But I also celebrate that my life changed that weekend in more ways than I can recount (many are described in other blog posts you can read below). One major change is that walking became a constant part of my everyday life. On the last day of my first 3Day walk, I limped on a very swollen knee to the registration tent and signed up to do it again the following year. Since that day, I walk at least 4-6 hours every week, and each year as training kicks into gear, I walk up to 25-30 hours a week.

People ask how I stay motivated to walk so much. Matt and I are lucky because, since the walk has been part of our lives together from the very start, walking is a way that we celebrate our life together. Walking dates are a big part of what we like to do. That helps. But there are some other things that I recognize as being the ways that I stay inspired to keep walking year round. I hope that this list might help you keep focus in your training life.

1. Respecting Your Training = Respecting Yourself.
We all have jobs or classes and doctor’s appointments and committee meetings and more that we have to get to at specific times. And, generally, we make it to all those places when we are supposed to because we have scheduled it. You need to make walking as important as anything else in your life. Schedule time to walk and write that time directly onto your calendar as an event. Consider it a date with yourself. You wouldn’t break a date with a friend, would you? So don’t break dates with yourself!

2. Be Impressed With Yourself.
Training for The 3Day takes a lot of time and effort. Be impressed with what you are accomplishing. Tracking your training in a visible and accountable way will help you stay reminded that you should be proud of what you are doing when you take time to train. There are lots of ways that you can track all those miles. Create a chart and post it in your kitchen, make a special calendar for your office, or use an online tracking program, such as www.DailyMile.com. Whatever helps you to blow your own horn is worthwhile. What you are doing is special and incredible!

3. Be Inspired, Be Brave and Don’t Be Afraid to Cry a Little.
There are as many different experiences and meanings to the 3Day as there are walkers and crew. The stories of others will give you tremendous motivation to keep training. It is inspiring to read about why people are walking, what they are learning about themselves, how they are fundraising and more. Look for blogs on the subject, and follow the winding trail from the bloggers you like best to those that they are reading and recommending. I have listed a few of my most recent reads on my blog; other bloggers do the same. Reading the words of others can help you to think more about your own story, and this will definitely help you to keep those feet moving.

4. Embrace the Community
If you haven’t yet been on a 3Day event, you will soon discover that it is like a very big family, without the family drama. The 3Day is all about community. Walking or crewing a 3Day is a very intense experience and you can’t help but embrace the people who share it with you. Bringing that sense of community into your life year-round is a great motivator. I am grateful to the cyber world that has developed in the 9 years since my first walk. Rather than go home and lose that feeling of community during the months between events, I can visit with my 3Day family all the time. If you “like” The 3Day on facebook (http://www.facebook.com/3dayforthecure?ref=ts) you will get great pointers in your news feed, including links from online ambassadors. If you follow the 3Day on Twitter (http://twitter.com/the3day) you read fun comments all day long, and you will find yourself immersed in a community of wonderful 3Day friends. Soon you will be connecting with lots of people who will embrace you and the journey you are taking. It doesn’t matter what city each of us will be in when we have our 3Days, because we are all connected through our common passion.

5. Recognize Your Sense of Purpose
Staying motivated to train is easy when you stay connected to your own personal sense of purpose. You decided to take this journey for your own reasons. These reasons define your sense of purpose. Stay connected to that. Create a mantra that helps you focus on the meaning of your 3Day Walk. I focus on the mantra: “it’s just a walk”. With these words, I remind myself that even if my feet blister or my knees swell up, it is still just a walk. It isn’t chemo and it isn’t living in fear of leaving my daughter without a mom. I remind myself that I am walking for those who cannot take this journey. And for me, it’s just one foot in front of the other over and over again. It’s just a walk.

Think about your own reason for walking. Whatever it is, dedicate yourself and your training to that purpose. Commit yourself to training to honor that purpose. Your sense of who you are and why you are making this journey are worth naming and repeating. And doing that is certain to keep you going every time.

It's the Little Things

Whenever Matt and I are walking, we’re on the lookout for critters: bunnies, squirrels, birds, chipmunks, groundhogs, or whatever we are lucky enough to spot. We have a similar way of looking at the world and can often pass several miles talking about the critters we’ve seen or telling stories from their viewpoint. It can get pretty amusing when we start imagining the conversations that the critters might be having about us. This way of seeing the world is something we have in common, and it is fortunate that we both love finding bits of nature to catch our eyes and motivate our walks. If just one of us was stopping to look at little things along the way, I imagine that the other one might become impatient. Instead, we are each able to inspire one another to keep a watchful eye on fields and woods.

A few weeks ago, we were on an 8-mile training walk and we stopped at about Mile 3 to check on a puddle-y pond that Matt has, for years, insisted is filled with frogs. We have repeatedly checked this little pond and he always insists that there are frogs there, but never had we spotted one. That changed for us last Saturday. I’m glad that he is so much more patient than I am when it comes to waiting for the critters. We stopped along the bike path and leaned hopefully onto the fence that overlooks this little puddle of water.

We watched the water for a few minutes and I was ready to give up, repeating - as I have on many occasions - that there are no frogs in this not-really-a-pond. But Matt grabbed my arm just as I was ready to walk away, and he pointed. It took several seconds for my eyes to adjust before I spotted the frog, but sure enough there he was. Within minutes, we were registering a tally and grinning like little kids. We found 8 frogs that afternoon and stayed watching them for about 20 minutes while folks whizzed by on their bikes and roller blades, oblivious to the froggy haven that we had discovered. Eventually we pulled ourselves away and walked the rest of our miles, engaged and renewed by the strength that watching those frogs had invested in us.

Not everyone is motivated by frog-power, but here is where I am going to suggest that maybe you should be. Inspired by the beauty of nature, I am motivated to be my best self. But there was something more happening for me as I watched those frogs do almost nothing as they floated in their puddle. The following Saturday, when we discovered 7 tiny salamanders alongside the path, I felt that same inspiration building in me again. A well of emotion and motivation invigorates me when we spot critters. That day, I decided it was time to think about what the inspiration is that I am finding from these small living things.
Every time that I stop and appreciate a simple critter living its life, I am rejoicing in all of life. That’s why it has become an important aspect of my training walks. Every 3Day event in which I participate – as a walker or as crew – is an opportunity for me to focus on life and living. My commitment to the 3Day is a dedication to the value of life, and to the hope that someday no more lives will be lost to breast cancer.

Collecting an inventory of critters while I train helps remind me of the reasons that I walk in a way that feels very tangible for me. I am watching for frogs to honor the memory of being at the lake with my friend, Mary Kay, who lost her fight with breast cancer almost 8 years ago. I am counting the salamanders for the woman who is lying on her couch counting ceiling tiles while she recovers from this week’s chemo. I am laughing at the antics of the squirrels for the little boy who wishes his mom were there to laugh at the Saturday morning cartoons with him. I am grinning at the chipmunks dancing along the bike path to remember the man who is driving his daughter home from her first dance alone. When I am standing mesmerized by a bird I have never seen before, I honor the bride whose mother isn’t there to see her wedding finery. When I rejoice in seeing the first bunnies of spring, I am celebrating my friend, Diane, a two-time survivor and the spirit that gets all creatures through the winters of their lives.

The suggestion that one should ‘stop and smell the flowers’ is valid and valuable advice. However, I caution you against thinking that is the only way to engage with the natural world. Simply smelling the flowers is not enough. You need to look at them and hold them and think about what the flowers really mean. And so, I offer this new twist on the old adage, “Stop and look for frogs.” Maybe it won’t be frogs that you find for your inspiration. But find something that helps you to be reminded that we are in this for very big reasons, even if you are reminded by something small.

Do Something Amazing

This past Sunday, we volunteered at The Preview Expo for the Boston 3Day. Here it is, my tenth year of walking and crewing and I have finally attended my first Expo. I had no idea what I’d been missing. As we drove east early Sunday morning, I reflected aloud that I felt happy that we were driving towards “3Day-land”. I was feeling glad that we had volunteered to spend our day at the Expo. I felt happy knowing that we were doing what we could to help with an event that means so much to us. I could feel the joyful expectation rise within me that we were heading into 3Day-land, and therefore something amazing was going to happen.

Back in 2001, in preparation for my first walk, I read every inch of the information packet and felt well prepared for my first 3Day experience. I don’t even know if there were Expos back then; but if there was, I missed it. And in the years since then, I figured that I already knew what to expect and therefore didn’t “need” the Expo. I assumed that the Expo was just for first-timers seeking a little extra something. On Sunday, I discovered that there are all sorts of reasons to go to an Expo.

The Expo is indeed a great resource for new walkers and crew hoping to learn more about the event. At the Expo, attendees circulated between a number of small rooms and all around one large room, stopping to look at various exhibits about aspects of the 3Day. Participants could practice setting up and taking down pink tents. They could look at the tents and imagine crawling into them at the end of a long but glorious day of walking or crewing. There were workshops on blister care and fundraising and packing. There were tables filled with photo albums of past events. There were slide shows and sign-making materials. You could even write yourself a letter and the Komen folks will keep it safe and deliver it to you in camp during your 3Day.

At Sunday’s Expo, my role as a volunteer was “manning” the crew table. The table is intended to be a location for new crew (there to attend Crew 101) to stop by and ask questions. I’m not sure if it was because I have a carnival barker attitude or because I got to stand near some of the coolest graphics and signs, but I had a lot of walkers stopping to visit.

One of the signs at “my” table was a graphic presentation of “camp”. It’s a poster that the 3Day folks can use at every Expo. It represents a general sense of what is included in every camp --- like the trucks and the showers and the dining tent and the porta-potties and the rows and rows of pink tents. Apparently, if you are new to the 3Day world, it is a very intriguing poster. Alongside this map was a flow chart of the three days, starting with Opening Ceremony and moving through the pit stops and Camp through all three days and on to Closing Ceremony.

Lots of people stopped to look at the posters and then stayed to ask questions about what they should expect on the event and in camp. I loved all the chances I had to talk and to answer questions. I do love talking about The 3Day and I appreciated the opportunity to meet so many excited walkers and crew. Over and over again, I felt the connection and the joy that is, for me, a part of each 3Day. I had fun answering questions. And I left fortunate to be given the opening to really listen to people’s fears and expectations. And just as I have experienced on the actual 3Day, I met some people who will probably be in my heart forever. Let me tell you about one of them.

I hope that I will get to see Pat again. She stopped by my table about an hour into the Expo. Pat is an older woman, around 65 and a bit overweight. When I first spotted her, she hesitantly stood looking at the posters. Her husband stood beside her, hovering protectively, although he seemed older and perhaps more frail than she. I smiled and launched into my best “what can I help you with today”. She shrugged and smiled. I tried again, “First time?” She nodded. I introduced myself and she quietly returned the introduction but still just numbly stared at the map and flow chart. I tried another foray, “Are you going to be walking here in Boston?” That was the opening she needed and she began to explain that she was registered to walk, but was starting to fear whether she would physically be able to do it. She said she had some medical concerns and just didn’t know if it was more than she could do.

After finally handing me her fears, she looked at me expectantly and waited. It was a poignant moment. I wanted so much to be able to give her just the right answer. Having walked and crewed so many times, I felt well prepared to consider her question. I asked her what her physician thought. She said that he thought she should give it her best try. I smiled broadly and said that was my exact advise as well. I spent several minutes talking about the details of the event itself, using my handy flow chart poster as a reference. I explained that as a walker she would have many opportunities to rest, or to take a ride from a sweep van and walk only as much as she felt she really could. I explained that there would be lots of people on the event working extra hard to support her. I emphasized that she could train with a modified event in mind. Using the flow chart, I demonstrated that each 20-mile day is actually a bunch of 3 or 4-mile walks, with a pit stop at the end of each “short walk”.

I rested my hand on Pat’s arm and said, “You might not walk all 60 miles, but at the end of every day, you will know that you walked as far as you could. And you will know that you walked a whole lot farther than if you had just said ‘This is more than I can do’. At the end of the weekend,” I assured her, “You will know that you did something amazing.” I stopped talking and looked into her eyes and saw that they were welling up. I tried to glance away to avoid breaking down myself, but when my eyes moved past hers, I connected with her husband. He had been quietly standing just outside the circle of confidence that Pat and I were sharing. I looked at him now to see tears rolling down his face. The three of us stood there for a moment, connected by something deeper than my writing can embrace.

After a few moments, Pat smiled and thanked me. She asked if I was walking, and I explained that I would be volunteering on the third day of her Boston walk before going on to crew in Chicago. I will be walking as well, but not until October in DC. She smiled, with her eyes still glistening and threatening to tear up again, she said, “I sure hope I see you on that third day. I will want to thank you for helping me to walk.”

What I shared with Pat at the Expo is an important message for all of us. No matter how far we go, we should be able to say at the end of the day, “I have done as much as I could. I have done something amazing.”

Go to an Expo --- learn what you can, share what you can, talk to everyone you meet. Then go do something amazing.

Self-made Promises

The other morning, I visited my local drive-up coffee hut. It’s a tiny little one-room shack, reminding me - and those of us old enough to recall them - of a Fotomat booth. There’s just enough space inside for an espresso machine, a fridge and the nice man, Scott, who appears at the window with a bright smile each time I arrive. This morning, he came to the window, already tamping the espresso for my latte. He smiled and said, “skim latte, right?” I smiled my agreement and he went about preparing my coffee. I sat back in my car and reveled in the warm feeling of being recognized.

When someone greets us with a smile, and a “Your usual?” it makes us feel important, right? That acknowledgement and recognition makes us feel special. The reality is that all it means is that I drink the same thing all the time, I go to the same place often enough, and the guy that works there is good at his job. But there is another reality. I revel in the feeling of being known. Of course, the fact that Scott knows how I like my coffee doesn’t really mean that he knows me, but it does trigger that feeling. And I have come to learn that, for me, being known is deeply valued thing. I think it is for all of us.
I first came to a place of feeling known during my first 3Day Walk in Boston in 2001.

During the year leading up to my first 3Day Walk, I was facing some big questions about who I was and how I was living in the world. One of the things I was realizing was that I didn’t like the way I felt about myself. I had begun to come to a recognition that I often felt as though I was more separate from others than I wished. I had started to notice that there were many times that I would feel that all around me were people connecting with one another while I stood outside the circle, wishing I was inside the circle, but equally sure that those people inside the circle didn’t even know I was there. I knew I didn’t want my life to keep feeling that way, and I became determined to change it.

During the months of training for my first 3Day, I began to think about ways that I could make even more meaning of the event for myself. And so, I made myself a promise to be outgoing and have confidence that the people I was meeting were going to be interested in knowing me. It was an important self-promise, the words in my head were “whoever you meet will be as interested in meeting you as you are in meeting them.” This wasn’t really how I saw myself in the world, but it was how I wanted to be. It scared me a bit to try and be this person. But I also knew that I really did believe that I was interesting. I really believed that I had interesting things to say. But at the same time, I wasn’t very good at trusting that anyone would really be all that interested in listening to me. But that was who I wanted to be. And so I made myself that promise. I figured that it was just three days, and I could do anything for 3Days. It’s funny, I was more frightened about living up to that promise than I was about walking 60 miles.

And so, for 3 days, I met people – and really the world – believing in myself and believing that people wanted to know me. I listened intently to each person that I met. I responded to those people with intention. I spoke up, I shared stories about myself and about my life, and I rejoiced in becoming known. Those 3 days were the start of a gigantic journey. I journeyed 60 miles on foot and a lifetime in my heart. What I discovered was that I can be known. I can be the person I wanted to be. I don’t have to be outside of any circles.

And here’s the big lesson in all this. Maybe you are preparing right now for your first 3Day Walk. Maybe you are preparing for your tenth. Maybe you are a dedicated 3Day Crew member. Maybe you are a 3Day supporter, or maybe you are just curious. It doesn’t matter, really. What matters is this: in life, you must consider who you are and who you hope to be. And then go out and become that person. The 3Day is the ideal community within which to do this, because the people on the event are all committed to a brighter world. But really, the opportunities to reach your own goals exist everywhere in our lives. Whether it is The 3day, or simply the next three days of your life – whichever it is, you can make yourself any promise you need to. You deserve to be the person you dream of being. We all do.