2012 Project Bread Walk for Hunger

“It's a beautiful day
Don't let it get away…”
"Beautiful Day" Words and music by U2

I didn’t. Last Sunday was another amazing day, another amazing Walk!!

Performance-wise, we achieved all we set out to do, and more. Financially, we blew past our initial goal of $720, with contributions currently just under $770 – that means my commitment to double my pledge has been triggered. Equally important, that so many offered their financial and/or spiritual support and well-wishes. Not sure you can appreciate what that means – how up-lifting it is – to a participant.

I’m also going to add an additional as yet undetermined sum so that the total amount raised will be a multiple of $18 (the letters of the Hebrew alphabet that comprise the numerical value of “18” are Chet and Yod . Pronounced ‘Chai’ (rhymes with ‘Hi’ with a guttural ‘kh’), it means “life” – a uniquely appropriate multiple with which to base a donation to a cause like fighting hunger!).

Physically, I completed the 20 mile course in 6 ½ hours. Kind ‘a slow for me but I was walking with a new friend (see below), talked all the way and we took a break at Newton Center to stretch and re-fuel and another at the Arsenal Park Snack Stop just before the 12 mile marker (BTW, the food they offer is awful – I bring my own – but someone (maybe me?) should set them straight). During the Walk I never felt better. And at the end I felt no different than at the conclusion of my usual 9 milers. Now some of that may be because of the wonderful post-Walk massage I got in the Heart & Sole Circle tent (for those who raise more than $500). My ongoing walking regimen, including the intervals I started doing last month at the suggestion of Kerri Hawkins Put Some Pep inYour Step… Exercise of the Week: Intervals | Dietitian Drive, the pre-and during-the-Walk hydration and nutrition and the stretching at the re-fueling stops also had a lot to do with it. Bottom line, I felt like I could do some more. Seriously. And the next morning…not an ache or discomfort in sight!

It seems like everything I do now has a story and this one is no exception. It’s Sunday morning, about 6:30 am. I’m sitting in the Red Line train at Alewife waiting for it to depart when a tall, lanky guy with a bright engaging persona and dressed for the event sits down across from me. Naturally, we converse. It’s Bruce’s 28^th Walk, he’s a Heart & Sole Circle participant too and we decide to walk together. Well, for the next 6 ½ hours plus, I don’t believe our conversation stopped except to “you-know-what”. About 10 years my junior, lives in NH, just across the MA border, a lot of similar interests and experiences and an outlook in common so, much to share.

Don’t really know how to account for it but I guess when one is open to new experiences, making a friend like Bruce under the circumstances of participating in a physically taxing event like the Walk is entirely possible.

Nothing more to add.