1st Training Walk!

Saturday was my 1st time hosting a Training Walk and overall it was a success! There were 8 of us in total and we managed to get in most of the 13 miles before the real heat set in. Thank goodness! We met at the beach in South Boston, and walked into Boston, the North End, through the Public Garden and Boston Common, the outskirts of Chinatown, and then around Castle Island in South Boston. Overall, a pretty good mix of the city!

I handed out directions to everyone, and we started walking. Pretty soon it was obvious that of the 8 of us, we walked at 2 paces: fast and not-so-fast. You probably guessed I was part of the not-so-fast group! I walked w/ 3 others (all 1st time 3Day walkers, although 1 of the women has participated in several Avon 2 Day walks, so I consider her a veteran)!

About 9 miles in, one of the girls I was walking with began feeling "woozie" so I hung out with her for a few minutes until she felt better. It's amazing how quickly that feeling can come on, and how just as quickly it goes away once you eat and drink something. She decided to cut out the last 4 miles, so I walked back with her while the other 2 kept going. Didn't want to lose one of my walkers! Once she was on her way home I finished up those 4 miles without trouble.

The only problem on my 1st ever Training Walk? I had a wrong turn listed on my directions! WHY?!??!?! I had worked so hard to make sure everything was right because the last thing I wanted to do was send someone the wrong way. Unfortunately my worst fear came true! Here's what happened....

I had printed directions and last week drove with Keysha to make sure they were correct. I made those changes at work, photocopied the directions so every walker would have a copy and was all set. On Friday night I decided re-format the directions so they were cleaner to read. I fogot the updated set up directions was on my work computer, so when I re-formatted using the file I had on my home computer the error in turning wasn't fixed. So, I got the 4 fast girls lost! Luckily they were familiar with the city and only walked about 1/2 mile before they realized I must have done something wrong and they turned around and got back on track. I can't even imagine how horrible it would have been if they didn't realize I did something wrong! Sorry girls! When you sign up to walk 13 miles in the heat, you sure as don't want to walk 14 miles!

Hopefully my next Training Walk is error free! Or perhaps it was a freudian slip and I didn't want to get lapped by the fast walkers? Just kidding! :-)