Saturday was the first day of the Patriot Walk Around Houston. I had the honor (although my body disagrees!) to join Mark for a day. It was about 17 miles, which to me, didn’t seem that catastrophic. I eventually learned that it is quite a bit longer than it “seemed.”
We set out from Clay’s Restaurant a little after 11am. The rain had thankfully passed but boy was that wind something else. We walked north for the better half of the day so were quite wind burnt by the end. It mostly consisted of walking behind neighborhoods and the typical suburb. As the day progressed, the sun began to come out and the puddles drained, so did I. About 2/3 of the way through I finally really started to feel it and tried my best not to drag. I think I did pretty well myself, for no training or experience with walking across America
Thankfully Mark was there to motivate me, and even held my back pack for a while when I recuperated. Yep, he had two back packs on at once! Pros of walking behind Mark: he definitely kept me going. I had no choice but to keep up, plus I could watch where he was stepping. Cons: he is fast! With his experience, and obviously longer legs than me, I had my work cut out.
Any complications? One. Construction! For a good while there was construction on both sides of one of the streets. This meant that there was no shoulder and the space to each side of the road consisted of orange barrels and mud. This definitely caused a little pain in my butt (which is nothing in comparison to the actual pain I feel in my butt today!).
To sum it up; a goldmine of dog poo (don’t ask!), gang vandalism, a few mud scares, a duck feeding, kolache stop, brief VFW visit, neighborhood tour, creek crossing and a huge interstate later…we arrived at our final destination.
Lesson for the day: don’t lay down immediately following this feat.
No comments:
Post a Comment