We did it!!! It was the most amazing thing we have ever every done!!! I don't even know how to put into words just how amazing the whole experience was, but here are some details.
We watched 3500 women and men walk together for a cause we all believed in so much!! We watched frail, hurting breast cancer patients fight their way through the miles because they "had" to finish. We watched an entire city unite. Kids were sitting out on their front year handing out lemonade and feeding walkers. Men were dressed like women, college students cheered with bra's on. Believe we, we saw it all!
We got to spend the weekend with 24 of the most amazing group of men and women, Christy's Crew. I wish I had the whole thing on tape so that I could remember it forever...we laughed so hard. We cried. We cheered. We bitched (bad). We hurt. We did it TOGETHER!!!
Renting this bus was the best decision we made the entire weekend! We made it to Washington in just over 7 hours and had a complete blast the entire way down there. I have not laughed that much ever!! Here was the crew before we got on the bus at 6:30 am!
We had more comments the entire weekend on our shirts. Christy's Crew does travel in style that is for sure! We wore our black shirts on Friday and it was so cool because when we got there we had so many people say that they knew who we were from the web site! On Friday night we went to an Italian restaurant for dinner and on the way there we stopped at the site of the opening ceremonies and meet Molly who is a part of the Avon Staff. She lead my introduction meeting and was a big fan of our web site!! It was great to meet you Molly! Here she is with us
We did some site seeing on Friday night and I really forgot what an awesome city Washington is.
Friday night we stayed at the hotel and were up early to get ready for our big day! Opening ceremonies were amazing. They have two of this big towers there where you can write who you are walking for on them next to your city. They go from city to city and really are amazing -
The second best decision we made was getting GREEN shirts (Thank you Jamie!)!! We wished we would have had them for both days because really, it was SO easy to find us!! Everyone is in pink, so everyone would see the green and know exactly who we were!
Again, the ceremony was amazing...full of tears and a great way to start the day.
Aunt Sharon was on the crew and one of our biggest cheerleaders. She was there for all of the big moments including being on the starting line sending us off -
It is a SEA of pink and walkers at the beginning. Because of all of the people it took us 40 minute to do the first mile and that really put us back with our time. The secret is to get at the front of the line! :)
I tried to take pictures at each mile marker of the whole walk. I missed 2 on Saturday and a bunch on Sunday, but it was fun to watch our faces change as the walk went on. At 5 we were still smiling!
Not only did we have local cheerleaders, we brought some of our own too! The Ballard family, the husband and kids of walker Karen, came down to DC to cheer all of us on. I can't tell you how awesome it was to go around a corner and have someone there with a "Christy's Crew" sign. Next time we will bring more of our family and friends!! It really is an experience for them too!
The route was really the best. We went by EVERYTHING including the Capital, National Mall, Washington Monument, Arlington National Cemetery, Iwo Jima, Embassy Row (this hill was the WORST!!), National Cathedral, the White House... Iwo Jima always is so amazing to see -
Team California put these signs all over the place throughout the walk. They were awesome. I loved this one especially -
Janelle, one of our walkers, walked the entire 39 miles 15 weeks pregnant! Amazing!
We had the honor of meeting Monica's husband. Monica lost her battle to breast cancer in 1997 and her husband did the walk with her when we was alive and he still does it. It was very emotional to meet him. He leaves pennies with pink ribbons on them all over the route in honor of his wife. Our crew found a few of them! You can read about his wife here. Get some tissues first.
Teams had the best shirts (of course ours was the best!). I loved this one -
On Saturday night we stayed in the Wellness Village. It was really awesome and all of us wished we had more time there to enjoy it. We started walking at 7:00 am on Saturday and didn't get to the Wellness Village until around 6:30 I think?
We were SO lucky to have the best Crew there because when we got there Jamie (Christy's husband) and their friend Bill had set up all of our tents and put our bags in them already!!! This was a life saver. Really. I don't know how we would have done it.
Anyway, the Wellness Village is filled with all sorts of cool stuff like a Spa Zone with foot and back massager's, medical staff, massage therapists, food, showers, porta potties...you name it. It also has over 1000 tents!
There were two fields this size filled with tents. Really it was quite a site!
The next day we got up for our 1/2 marathon. The route was filled with both bikers like this and a bunch of motorcyclists as well who worked getting us across roads safely. They were amazing.
How about this motorcycle guy? He was awesome, a ton of fun, and always had great music playing to keep you going!
Right.
The finish line was just amazing. There were literally 100's of people there cheering you on. You cry. Hard. You feel such a sense of accomplishment for a cause that you have worked so hard for. I don't know I can put into words just how awesome it was, but to hold hands with Christy's Crew and to have her walk US over the finish line was amazing.
Here we are all after we finished and after we dried all of our tears!
They give all of the walkers the pink shirts. They give all of the survivors the light pink shirts in preparation for closing ceremonies. The walkers walk in together and the survivors walk in after together. Christy was in the wrong place so in order to get her where she needed to be we yelled for people to let the survivor through. I am sure Christy was embarrassed a bit, but it was awesome. Everyone was cheering for her and it was hard not to get all teared up.
The survivors marching in -
This lady was amazing -
Here were our survivors Anne and Christy marching past (Christy is hiding behind Anne).
You have also probably seen these ribbons. They represent the fact that every 3 minutes someone is diagnosed with breast cancer. Over the weekend they hand out one every 3 minutes and my Aunt Sharon was given one to hand out. At closing ceremonies she gave it to me. It was quite an emotional moment in so many ways.
Did I tell you Reese Witherspoon was there? Christy actually had her picture taken with her! She is Avon's ambassador for the walks and really seems into the whole cause.
She announced all of the grants that Avon distributed from the 8.1 MILLION dollars we raised at the DC walk. The best part was the first one was given to Friends of Cancer Research in the amount of $45,000.00 and that was EXACTLY what we raised. So, with all of your donations, Christy's Crew funded that whole entire grant! AMAZING!!
On the way home we celebrated. We had so much to celebrate. We celebrated two survivors. We celebrated walking 39 miles. We celebrated all that we raised. We celebrated the friendships we have made.
And...we started planning the 2009 walk.
Most of us can't WAIT to do this again. It was the most amazing weekend ever and we are forever changed because of everything we experienced over those 48 hours.
We need to find a cure.
We need to raise awareness.
1 in 7 of women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime.
We don't have time to wait.
Are you interested in joining us in 2009? We are in the beginning stage of planning the 2009 walk, so e-mail me at kdwilliams@rochester.rr.com if you would like more information. We would love to have you!
Keep in mind that you don't have to walk all 39 miles. A lot of our walkers this year are already talking about just walking the 13.1 miles each day and enjoying the experience that much more next year. There is a $1800.00 fundraising commitment as a walker.
We also brought along the best crew. Crew makes the whole weekend happen. We had crew in food services feeding us (thanks Christine and Joanne!), we had Aunt Sharon cheering us one, and we had Jamie and Bill in Security. They also look for medical staff, PT's, drivers, etc. Crew is not required to raise any money, but our crew ended up raising a ton for DC!
