Walk this way...(don't take a friggin' cab)

I was tempted to just jump right back into writing, blatantly ignoring my long absence sure no one would have noticed, but then I received a few concerned comments on the blog, asking if I was OK after Hurricane Sandy, so I felt like I had to at least acknowledge my hiatus.  I barely remembered the password to my Blogger account today.  My writing muscles are weak, so this post is the literary equivalent of doing your first Sweatin' to the Oldies video after you've had a baby.  Be kind to me, dear readers.

So, yes, my nuclear family and I are just fine after the hurricane.  I have major survivor's guilt since we never lost power when most of our town was out for nine days.  While many families I know were going to bed at 7:30, huddled together under blankets to keep warm (shout out Donna), I was drinking a lot of wine with various guests we have had since the storm.  We felt the best way to make up for our good fortune was to feed people and get them drunk so they could pass out comfortably in ur poorly heated attic bedroom. My body is currently protesting the lack of refined sugar and alcohol, since after the 7th night in a row of drinking and binge-eating Halloween candy we never got to give out, I had to get back to real life, otherwise, I was going to wind up attending Weight Watcher's and AA meetings for all of November.

Some very close family and friends did not fare so well, which is a stark reminder that not everyone was watching movies at night and wondering when the kids would be going back to school.  Or, more like, wondering when your husband would go back to work, since he was stalking around the house after a week like a caged animal.  My children have known no wrath from me like that I exhibited when they got upset about Halloween being a bust for the second year in a row.  One, two, maybe even three bouts of disappointment I can understand, but when people you love dearly have no home, you can shut the hell up about not having a pillowcase full of Butterfingers under your bed.  And I would've taken all of those anyway.  A lot of people are still really suffering, so for those of my readers who are not local, and would like to help, please consider donating to the Red Cross relief effort.

I can't blame my lack of writing entirely on Sandy.  Well, I guess I can't blame Sandy at all since we had power.  I'll blame my husband and children for being under foot for almost two weeks.  I will also blame it on preparing for, and recovering from, the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to all of my readers, many of whom I have never met in person, who generously donated to my walk fund.  The walk in New York alone raised 8.3 million dollars.  Yes, I am proud to have helped with that, but I am even prouder of the fact that I actually finished the walk.

I have to confess, when I signed up I thought, "How hard could it be to walk 39 miles over two days?".  I've run 13 miles then gone about my regular day!  My partner and I did a few "training walks", ten miles or so, mostly to break in our new walking shoes.  I got into the car at 4:30 Saturday morning to head into the city sure this would not be a problem.  You know where this is going.

Fast forward to 2:30 in the afternoon at mile 26 and I am on the verge of tears.  My partner and I had been walking the streets of New York for eight consecutive hours, stopping only to pee, get water and grab a sandwich at the lunch station.  I developed a huge blister on the back of my left heel and my left calf was cramping after hours of altering my gait to compensate.  The course had begun at Pier 84 on the west side of Manhattan, and snaked uptown, downtown and across three bridges.  We walked past landmarks I had never seen up close like the Intrepid and  Grant's Tomb.  We walked near the latter and further north during the wee hours of the morning, thanks to the sharp planning of the walk coordinators.  I was glad we had a motorcycle escort at six a.m., since the residents who were awake in those neighborhoods were not at all psyched about thousands of women dressed in pink racing along their sidewalks.

That's right, I said motorcycle escort.  We had quite the tough gang of bikers, many with pink accents hanging off of their bikes, meeting us at various crossings to ensure our safe passage.  The walk people really made sure, not only that we made it out of the 'hood safely, but that the out-of-town rubes didn't get mowed down by a city bus, by having crossing guards as well.  These were less consistent in their type and quality.  There were many lovely volunteers who cheered us on our way appropriately.  Then there was Inappropriate Hugging Guy and the guy shouting "Do it for the boobies!".  And you didn't just run into them once, they ran all over the city to get ahead of the pack.  By our third meeting with IHG, he knew to stay the fuck away from me or get a swift one to the nads.  I would've taken a guard of any type and quality though, at noon on the Brooklyn Bridge.  Between hipster wedding parties taking Instagram photos of the beautiful day and European tourists screwing up the flow of pedestrian traffic, it was like a game of Frogger.

The walkers also varied in their type and quality (more on that).  There were plenty of two and three person teams such as my partner and myself.  There were also families and the survivors they were supporting.  There were corporate groups with professionally embroidered golf shirts such as the Testes for Breasties team.  There were A LOT of breast puns.  There were huge fundraising teams who were doing their 10th walk together, many decked out in costumes.  Pink boas and tutus abounded.  While cute, I could only imagine the chafing and sweatiness they would generate come mile 10.

Now about walker quality.  Don't get all judgy.  I don't mean the survivors, or the elderly.  I mean the able bodied gals, like myself.  After the first few miles, the pack thinned out according to pace, and you generally found yourself walking near the same people on and off again.  This was fine unless you wound up walking five miles next to Loud-mouthed Lucy and her partner Megaphone Marcy.  No, I don't care how your neighbor's house is in foreclosure or about your sister's prolapsed uterus (I do not kid), so pipe it down, sister.

The other walkers I took issue with were The Cheaters.  At mile 13, we happened upon some boa-sporting ladies at a red light who asked us incredulously, "Jeez, are you guys running?".  When we pointed out we all seemed to be keeping the same pace, they guffawed, "We went to breakfast and took a cab here!"  We passed another team on the Upper West Side who was waiting for a flea market to open to do some shopping.  All of this made my blood boil.  I know this walk was not a "race", per se, but, true to my type A personality, I took it on as a physical challenge, and my partner and I wanted to finish in the top 100.  How demoralizing to be numbers 20 and 21 at Rest Stop 3, then 62 and 63 at Rest Stop 4 because pople were cab-hopping all over the place.  In the post-race survey, I recommended some kind of chip for those who wanted to keep track of their progress and no chip for those who wanted to go to brunch.

All in all, the walk was an incredible experience that I highly recommend.  Walking, or hobbling, through the balloon arch at the finish on the second day, I felt like I had really taken part in something wonderful.  I had raised a lot of money ($2100!) and pushed myself through physical pain, for a good cause.  And, once and for all, proved I should never run a marathon.  Walking one almost killed me.  And no, I'm still not putting a queer sticker on my van.

So I am back, dear readers.  Expect more posts next week.  Unless there's an earthquake or swarm of locusts.