Making Strides For Breast Cancer Walk Sunday

Yesterday, a few members of Christy's Crew (Ruth Mcelheny, Kristin Sumner and myself) participated in the Making Strides for Breast Cancer Walk in Rochester on Sunday morning. Here is a link to the article in the D&C .
About 9,000 people participated raising over $700,000 for Breast Cancer research and services!

We had a lot of fun doing this walk. And learned a lot about what it might be like in D.C. in May. This walk was only a 5K (3.2 miles) - DC will be 39.5 miles over 2 days!

First learning - with a crowd this large, and everyone walking (as opposed to a running 5K), the pace is what we call "lolly gagging". About 3 miles per hour. In a running 5K - the pack spreads out quickly as the faster runners move ahead and slower move behind, leaving more room in the streets. In the walk case, there was no spreading out. It was hard to get around people.

Second learning - it will be in our best interest (Christy's Crew) to do the training for the 39.5 miles - especially the endurance walks. This way we can see what body parts are tired or are giving out ahead of time - in order to build the strength there. Given this was only a 1 hour walk - we would need to multiply that times 7 hours to complete the 26 miles the first day in DC.




Overall - the experience was great! I met many breast cancer survivors.
My Surgeons office was walking - Genessee Valley Surgical.
I saw my oncologist walking - Dr. Brian Yurineck along with others from Pluta Cancer Center.
I also saw my Radiologist from Elizabeth Wende Breast Clinic - Dr. Destounis. She is the one who diagnosed me with Breast Cancer. We had an instant connection back in July and when I went up to her at the walk on Sunday - she gave me a hug and started to cry because I was doing so well! Too sweet - I told her "no crying!". Given she has so many diagnosis like this on a daily basis, events like this are probably very emotional for her! God Bless her!

Thanks to Ruth and Kristin for walking. And for Ruth's friend, Larry, who let us sign up for the event and walk with his team! By the Way - Larry is the person mentioned in the D&C article. His wife is a 5 year breast cancer survivor and is recently an ovarian cancer survivor!