Walking 100km: Unforgettable Moments & Lessons

Four days since we finished walking 100km and I’m still processing and digesting the gifts and lessons, and the way that it’s changed me. I expect that, this will be a gift that keeps on giving, an experience that grows even richer over time and that nourishes my future endeavours and bolsters my resilience in future hard times. For now though, I want to share a few unforgettable moments that really impacted me and some of the gifts I’m already taking from the experience. I hope that there are gifts in here for you too!

Finishing our miles for Day 1 and 2

We pulled in just about last (I think there were 2 walkers behind us) on both day 1 and 2. Kidney March crew were waiting for us and cheering wildly as we came in. I was quite overwhelmed with emotion and of course the tears flowed, especially after the toughness of day 2. I’ll always remember that feeling of total exhaustion and pain, mixed with the relief that it’s going to stop soon, the pride that we stuck it out all the way and the sense of community in being cheered and supported all the way. It’s a huge heart-swell moment!

You’re probably wondering why I haven’t mentioned day 3… On day 3 I chugged back a few Extra Strength Tylenol to be able to bear the pain of a nasty blister on my baby toe (it would probably be more correct to say “the nasty blister that was my baby toe”). I think it numbed me out a bit emotionally, so finishing up on day 3 didn’t have quite the same emotional kick!

I don’t think that finishing days 1 and 2 would have felt the same if we hadn’t had the group of Kidney March crew waiting for us expectantly and wildly cheering us in, and our friends and family on Facebook encouraging us along the way and celebrating with us when we completed each leg of the journey. My take-away here (other than the interesting realization that Tylenol numbs the emotions along with the physical pain) is the reminder of how important it is to celebrate shorter milestones along the way on a big journey, and the reminder that a celebration is exponentially more joyful and powerful when we do it in community. Thank you to all of you who watched us and celebrated our little gains with us.

The Kidney March crew cheering us in at the end of Day 2.

Everything becomes more meaningful and worthwhile when you do it in community

Heather wrote about this on her blog, and I agree – it’s been one of my biggest take-aways from this experience. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t have done it without Christina and Heather. Having Heather and Christina walking with me provided so much love and support (and entertainment!), and that offered me a contrast and something else to focus on, beyond the pain.

There was also the broader community – all our friends and family all over the world who watched and followed us and sent us encouraging messages and created a very real sense of being held and carried by many people. I was enormously touched by the local Calgarian friends and family who came out to cheer us along on the road, and also very moved by the friends and family from Cape Town and my childhood neighbourhood who came out to watch and cheer us along on Facebook. There’s something incredibly rich about those relationships that are 10, 20, 25 and more years old. It’s an enormous blessing that we’re still connected and a part of each others lives after so many years – especially considering that Andy and I have lived on other continents for at least 6 of the last 10 years. If you were one of those people who cheered us on from Calgary or from afar, thank you so much.

I think all of the tough things in life are like this – much harder to endure alone, and exponentially more endurable when you have solid, warm, big-hearted and courageous people at your side.

Christina’s husband and kids cheering her along and running in for hugs

During tough times, we discover what people are really made of

Tough times peel away the facades and show what we’re really made of, and the best place to find out what kidney marchers were made of was at the massage tent. We had over 200 walkers, many of them fairly new to endurance sport events and 4 or 5 masseurs who were available to offer massages from about 4pm till about 9pm. You do the math… some people were gonna luck out!

The process was that you had to sign up for a massage on a list that you could only add to on the day, once you arrive after completing your walk for the day. The obvious result was that the fast and fit walkers got to sign up first, with very few (if any) spots left for the slow, struggling walkers who came in late, but probably needed a massage even more. And if you did get a spot, you’d have to wait till 8 or 9pm and have your massage in the cold because the massage arena was outdoors.

We lucked out on day 1 – there were no spots left when we came in. On day 2, as soon as we got in at 6:30pm, we managed to gain the sympathy of a lovely Kidney March crew member who went and added our names to the massage list while we ate our dinner. After our dinner and showers we headed down to the massage tent and waited for our appointments. As we waited, we watched people come in and discover, to their great disappointment, that there was no space for them to get a massage – just as we had done the night before. We also watched someone who had come in early and signed up twice go for a massage, followed by a chiropractic adjustment, and then another massage again! (And the next morning we found out that this woman was only planning on walking the first hour of day 3 because she had some place else to go that day! Oy!).

While we were waiting for our massages, a woman who walked the last 5km with us arrived, hoping to get a massage slot. Having walked in with her, we knew how much she’d struggled and how persistent she’d been. And she was looking very sore and tired. In spite of her own pain and fatigue, Christina immediately offered her massage spot up to this woman because she looked like she needed it more. To witness your friends doing this sort of selfless and generous act in a moment when they themselves are exhausted is a wonderful thing – in that moment you get to see just how beautiful and transcendent their hearts are!

Loved the morsels of encouragement and wisdom that the Kidney Foundation left for us along the way!

You can endure much worse than you thought you could

I started my Kidney March with big blisters on my heels that hadn’t fully healed yet, from my training walks. They got worse as I walked and after about the 25km mark I’d reached what I thought was my “I-can’t-take-it-anymore” pain threshold. I was wrong. As it turns out, I could take at least another 75km worth of pain on top of that. It was amazing to experience that for myself, to push myself further than I’d been pushed before, and to see how much my boundaries were able to expand. This is an empowering and resourceful realization that will serve me in so many other areas of my life.

This is near the end of Day 3 – we were really slogging it and the sign on the right is descriptive, rather than directive!

Being who we want to be, regardless of uncomfortable or painful life circumstances

I’m sure you can imagine the pain of walking on raw blisters for 100km. That wasn’t the only pain we had to deal with. We camped in tents at a Scout campsite in K-Country. The toilets were far from the tents and it was cold, dark and dewey outside. I always need to pee once or twice at night. The agony of having to get out of my warm sleeping bag and run through the cold, dark, wet night on my stiff and sore legs and feet, and then being so cold that it takes 30mins or so to warm up again… I’ll not easily forget that!

Much of the weekend was physically uncomfortable and even intensely painful, and it’s really liberating to notice that none of the uncomfortable experiences made us give up or even get grumpy. It’s enormously empowering to be reminded that external circumstances, physical discomfort and even intense pain, don’t determine who we’ll be and how we’ll feel. Difficult circumstances can be endured in a spirit of humor, joy and love.

Heather and Christina – smiles, in spite of the pain!

The hot-bodied, bare-chested cowboy on Day 2

Day 2 was the toughest day – especially the last 9km. We were sore, stiff and blistered after walking 35km the previous day. It was hot and hilly, and we had to walk 38km that day. About 4km from the end of day 2, Christina, Heather and I were coming in right at the back, along with another 3 marchers. We’d fallen quiet as we each went inside to reach for the last of our persistence and resources to keep taking another step. It was the first time that the atmosphere wasn’t light and joyful.

And then we heard a noise and looked up to see a hot-bodied, bare-chested cowboy galloping past us on the side of the road in just his jeans and stetson. Needless to say, we all got a huge jolt of adrenalin and shouted and cheered wildly as he passed us. Our spirits were boosted and the joy was back as we laughed about how bedraggled, wild and crazy we must have looked, mused about whether we’d all finally lost our minds and conjured up a welcome mirage, and made all sorts of inappropriate jokes and innuendos about our sexy cowboy. Heather assures us that objectifying and perving at a hot-bodied cowboy is totally within the boundaries of feminism

I don’t really have a “lesson” to share from this (‘cept maybe the obvious one that, if you are a guy with a low self-esteem, dress like a cowboy and gallop past women who are exhausted and in pain and you’ll get the biggest, wildest cheer you ever heard that’s sure to make you feel great about yourself…). But it’s a moment that gave us great joy back then and will probably be a story that Heather and Christina and I will laugh about for years to come!

Heather and I – probably making lewd jokes about the cowboy

Rituals and metaphors can be more transformational than words

Throughout the 3 days of walking, I found myself drifting back to moments and memories in our journey after my health challenges and losing Juggernaut and seeing the parallels between the 2 hard journeys. Through my training and experience over the past 10 years or so, I’ve come to appreciate the power of working with people conversationally to transform past painful experiences using words that welcome new perspectives and choices, but I never before appreciated the enormous power of using nonverbal metaphorical rituals to transform past pain.

Our 3 day walk was a metaphorical ritual that in many ways paralleled everything Andy and I have been learning about living through and after a really difficult series of events. Every step I took through the pain of the 100km journey was an affirmation of all of the steps I’d had the courage and resilience to take through the pain of my health issues, losing Juggernaut and losing the opportunity to become parents naturally.

Andy didn’t walk with us, but he was at our sides, coaching and supporting us, providing practical care and pacing us all the way, and he did it with such calmness and strength and a deep belief in our resilience and ability to overcome – just the way he did when he supported me through the physical and emotional pain when I laboured and delivered our Juggernaut, and the months afterwards when I was so fatigued and had to work really hard to recover my health.

Our personal crew and biggest fan, ready with our water top-up!

And then of course, there’s the sense of community – the people who surrounded us from all over the world, holding us in mind and sending messages of love, support, encouragement and belief in our resilience during both journeys – that’s all woven together as a big story and feeling of love.

It’s hard to find words to explain how and why this experience was so powerful, but it feels like the physical metaphorical ritual of walking 100km brought many of the things I’ve learned about myself, life, hardship, health, and community were highlighted and made clear to me during the walk. And it feels like I’ve now “embodied” many of the liberating lessons that I was just processing in my head before. I feel certain that these are lessons I’ll never be able to forget. I hope that sharing both these journeys with you has given you some gifts too.

Us 3, very happy after completing Day 1′s distance (35km).

The road was long…

Giving the medics and support crew the “thumbs-up” that we’re okay. They were fantastic about checking in on all our needs along the way.

We walked on big highways, which was hot and heavy-going on the feet, but some of the views along the way were really lovely.

No, I’m not begging Christina to carry me – just having a hug stop!

More lovely views

Catching a spot of shade while we eat lunch.

If we weren’t such slow walkers, we might have had time for a swim! (Because of insurance and permits, we had a time limit for completing our distance. We exceeded it by 15 mins on both Day 1 and 2!)

Heather, looking fresh (I think this was morning of Day 2)

Christina, also looking strong and fresh on the morning of Day 2!

The impact we made together…

Our total raised is $17 381. So many thank yous for sharing our journey, encouraging us all along the way and helping to make a difference with your donation. As a whole, the 200-or-so Kidney Marchers together raised over $700 000 for kidney research!