Meeting Day 1 Goals

Throughout this whole experience I have been dealing with tendonitis of my right foot. As this is basically a recurrent injury, you do learn to work through the pain it provides. Knowing before arriving I would not be able to accomplish 20 miles per day - my original goal was 10 miles per day. Here I am meeting my first goal - 10 miles on Day 1. Unfortunately, I learned just down the street from this sign, my foot would not be allowing me to meet my original goal, so I had to re-set new goals for me.

A new goal met - after spending some time at the Medical tent at the lunch pit stop (icing and massaging of my right foot) and my crew mates moved ahead with their walk - I read that it I was able to make it to the next pit stop - I would have walked 13 miles = Half Marathon (21 km). Meeting me at the 13 mile mark was the Energizer bunny!! For me - this moment was very symbolic - it is a distance I have never done before and I remembered my sister Kathryn and a famous Canadian - Terry Fox.

One of the things cancer survivors look for - signs of Hope. For Canadians, the words Hope and Marathon symbolize what Canadian runner Terry Fox did in bringing awareness of cancer to the forefront. Terry Fox ran The Marathon of Hope - running from St John's NFLD and the goal of reaching Vancouver, BC. Unfortunately, he had to stop his dream just outside of Thunder Bay (my hometown) as his cancer had spread to his lungs. Terry Fox and Kathryn both had osteogenic sarcoma (he in his leg and she in her upper humerus bone); both had to have a limb amputated (he had a below the knee amputation and wore an artifical leg; Kathryn had to have a full arm amputation(including part of her shoulder) and had a prosthesis but in most cases never used it).

Relaxing scenery while waiting for the bus to take me back to base camp - near the Golden Gate Bridge.