Avon Walk for Breast Cancer-Day 2

I am re-capping my Avon Walk for Breast Cancer weekend. If you want to read about Day 1, go HERE!! Are you ready for Day 2?? I know I could have used a few more hours sleep before day 2. Hee hee! The lady in the tent behind me was snooooooring like a brown bear and I didn't get much of that so-called sleep!! We woke up to a misty, slightly foggy morning.


After taking our tent down, packing and turning in our luggage, eating a hot breakfast...we were ready for Day 2! Moving a bit slow, but ready.


Day 2 was only 13.1 miles. Yes, only!! It felt good to take it easy starting off, knowing that we had plenty of time to get to the finish line. Everybody was struggling with something...lost toenails, sore knees, blisters the size of Mount Olympus. But we kept on truckin'! Here we are at mile 5.


The Avon Walk provided all of our food along the course, water, 4 different kinds of gatorade, lunch, and snack galore! This was by far the BEST of the snacks. It was peanut butter and jelly sandwiched between graham crackers. Ohhh yeeeeaaaah!!


There were lots of people walking in sandals, flip flops, even socks on Sunday. Lots of bloody toes and nasty blisters. One of my teammates lost her pinkie toe toenail and her pinkie toe was soooo blistered. She could not fit her feet into her shoes. So she walked all 13.1 miles in her SOCKS on Sunday. CRAZY!!! We slowly kept moving and before long (well...6 hours long) we MADE IT to mile 13!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


So that was 26.2 miles Saturday plus 13 miles Sunday...for a total of 36.2 miles. We only had 0.1 miles to reach the finish!! The rest of our teammates that already crossed the finish line met up with us and we all finished together!!!


My husband and kids were at the finish line and that was amazing. My daughter would not let go of my hand and told me...Mom, when i'm old enough I'm going to walk with you! That made me cry right then and there. My son was just excited that I had snacks for him. Ha ha!!


This is my long time bestie, Beth, who was the captain of our team. Her mom is a 2-time breast cancer survivor and I am lucky and grateful and so happy to have her in my life!


And this is my girlfriend Shannon. She is my neighbor and we went through this whole adventure together. She was a real trooper during the walk and was always smiling, even though some parts were not that fun. I love this girl!!


Closing ceremonies was pretty amazing. We all walked in together and then all the people who were breast cancer survivors that walked came in. And we learned all sorts of great statistics about the weekend:

-2800 people walked Santa Barbara 2010
-$6.4 Million was raised!!
-That was a 40% increase from last year's walk. AMAZING!!

During closing ceremonies, checks were presented directly to foundations and organizations to help fight breast cancer. The money was split across care centers, research labs, population studies, and a place called Helping Hands who provide free hot meals to cancer patients. All the money stayed in Southern California in places like Santa Barbara, the Antelope Valley, Northridge, and UCLA to name a few. Pretty great to see exactly where the money was going. Oh, and Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas was there to hand out the checks. And she was with her hubbie, Josh Duhamel!


I know, I was far away from the stage, LOL!!! You can kinda see her in her pink Avon hat. And my sweet hubbie knew exactly what I wanted in the end. Comfy shoes and an ice cold beer!! Yes, it's a Bud Light. Don't judge me, I just walked almost 40 miles.


THANK YOU again to all my amazing supporters!!! I keep saying the weekend was amazing, but it truly was. I am so proud of each and every woman on my team. What a great group of girls, I cannot wait to walk next year. Okay, I can wait until my poor sore calves have a chance to heal. But I will be back next year!!!

Thanks for stopping by today, Friends!!