Three days and sixty miles later, my sister and I completed the 2008 Breast Cancer 3-Day. A lot of stuff went on, so I will just give a brief recap by day of what I remember:

Day 1

We started out Day 1 in the dark and cold at Southfork Ranch in Parker, TX. There’s something about starting at that time of day in that time of year. There is dew on the ground and your shoes get wet and that’s never a good thing when you’re getting ready to walk 20 miles for the day.

Julie and I were quite a hit that day due to the bras that were strapped to our backpacks (I could only guess how many pictures of our packs are out there somewhere). We had a bra on for each person or company that donated more than $250 to our efforts, we had 5 total. The goal was to carry them all 60 miles and have people sign them all the way. I have to say it was quite a bit of fun to see people’s reactions when I asked, “Excuse me, would you sign my bra?”

Day 1 continued on and we ended up being very close to the closing time at most of the pit stops. We skipped lunch at the stop because of a huge line that would have taken too long to get through and had peanut butter and jelly, chips and string cheese at the next stops.

Port-o-potties were everywhere. Which was the same as last year.

They did not have the peanut butter, jelly and graham crackers as last year, which was disappointing.

We got back to camp and the showers and hot food were a welcome relief, but I do think it’s adding insult to injury (or at least sore muscles) to have to set up a tent after 20 miles. A lot of people said the food wasn’t good, but after that many miles, I think anything would have probably tasted good to me.

Day 2

Soreness and top of the morning coldness greeted us on day 2. More walking and “water features”. About a mile in I had to stop Julie on the verge of tears and make sure that she wanted to continue walking. I wanted to make sure that she would be able to walk to closing ceremonies. She decided to walk on and pushed through a lot of pain. I have to say that I’m really impressed at the strength she showed getting to that next pit stop to get her foot wrapped. After that, she was able to move with less pain and we continued on.

This day we managed to get lunch, which was ok. Not great, it fell apart. I managed to spill fruit juice over myself when opening a fruit cup which caused the bees to converge on me. I didn’t get to eat much of my lunch after that. Go bees.

Day 2 brought us the most awesome cheering station though. It had to be several hundred yards long and there were tons of people there. It was great to see family and co-workers there cheering us on, it was a huge spirit lifter.

We got back to camp, went to the showers and experienced the shower nazi. You’re not really supposed to go straight to the showers when you get back. You are supposed to get a drink, get some food and then go. I don’t think a whole lot of people do though. I usually drank half a bottle of water and then went, and when I got there this time, there was a medic who wouldn’t let anyone into the shower area unless they had a cup of water or gatorade in their hand.

When we went to bed that night, Julie was talking and every sentence she said was kind of random. She stopped for a minute, so I said, “It smells like butter.” She gave me a weird look and asked what that was about and I said, “Well, you were saying all of this stuff out of the blue and you paused, so I thought it was my turn”. We both had a good laugh about that.

Day 3

I actually woke up feeling pretty darn good on day 3. We had breakfast and Julie went to the medic tent to get her feet taken care of. I took down the tent and was ready to go, but she was waiting in line. She told me to go on and we would meet up later. They ended up bussing her to a pit stop and we actually did meet up just about lunch time. This was actually how a lot of the day went, I would stop for something and she would continue on and I would catch up later.

We got to the end and were walking in being cheered by everyone. We were both getting a little teary eyed, so she said “It smells like butter”. It took me a minute to figure out what she was talking about but it lightened the mood significantly.

From there we went to the closing ceremony.

There’s a lot of stuff that I have left out, probably a lot that would make it seem much more fun than what I wrote. Unfortunately, I waited too long to write this, so this is what I have left over at the top of my memory. We had a great time, the DFW 3-Day raised 7.9 million dollars for breast cancer research, education and prevention. I think that’s pretty awesome to be a part of that.