Day 3 of my 3-Day walk for charity

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After having walked over 20 miles the first day and over 19 the second day, I think we were all ready to get going on the last (short) leg of our journey - a mere 16 miles. Along with the miles on the routes, we walked additional miles in our camp, totalling around 60 miles in 3 days to raise money for Susan G Komen for the Cure. Although it seemed like it was even colder that last morning than the others, I knew I had to get out of "bed" early to get everything packed up. I stumbled out of bed close to 5:00am, got some breakfast, then came back to get things cleared out before heading out for the day. After taking the tent down and stowing my gear on the trucks, I boarded a bus to the beginning of our final miles. We did a little sight-seeing (wether intentional or not we aren't sure) and drove by TC Williams High School from Remember the Titans. It was probably close to 8:00am when we finally got to walking. I met many people this day, the first few shortly after we started. The first leg of our journey was nice and easy, smooth walking. Then we noticed some chalkmarks on the sidewalk commenting on our nice "flat" walk so far. Little did we know we were headed for another hill - a STEEP hill. At the bottom, I commented to some of the other walkers that I was going up fast or I wasn't going to make it. I climbed the hill at a fast pace, mostly walking in the grass, passing quite a few of the other walkers. I had a line of about 5 other people walking behind me, keeping my pace. At the top, I kept going and ended up walking with the girls that had the tents across from us. We had talked with them a bit the night before and had a great time. I enjoyed walking with them, but at the grab n go I got seperated from them and walked alone for a while. Walking over the Key Bridge into Washington DC, I pretty much stayed with a few other people and chatted a bit with them. At one of my stops, I hooked up with a young girl, then at another stop fell in step with another girl. At the last stop I ran into the same woman I had walked with most of the previous day and we finished out the walk together. Up until the last 6 miles, I was feeling pretty good. After lunch that last day, my knee was giving me a pretty big fit. My husband was at one of the cheering stations and gave me some ibuprohin, which might have helped a little bit, but I was hurting too much to really tell. The hardest part was walking in the middle of Washington DC because of the traffic. We were constantly stopping, every couple blocks, for traffic. We breezed in front of the White House, across the street from the Capital building and also through Dupont Circle. Because I grew up around here, these were not new sights for me, but many of the walkers were from other states and they stopped to take in the sites. I just kept on going, just wanting to finish! I crossed the finish line at about 1:30pm and headed straight for the medical tent to get some ice for my knee! It was about 3 hours before the closing ceremonies, so when I found my husband and tentmate, we went to relax, get a bite to eat and a margarita! I can't wait to do this again next year!!!