A very special evening...

Last night my friend Susan hosted a trunk show at her home. A dozen or so women showed up to nosh and to buy clothes. Susan's proceeds from the event are being donated to this walk. When Lauren and I walked into the event, we knew Susan and one other person. By the end of the evening, I think we had spoken with everyone -- each had their own unique perspective on how breast cancer had affected them or someone they knew. Many had told Susan in advance that they would be taking the money they would have spent on clothes and donating it to my walk.

Though I thought I had been prepared in orientation sessions for the extremely emotional connections that are made through this event, I found myself overwhelmed by the generosity of women I had just met. When I walk at Green Lake wearing my 3 Day hat, I have gotten used to passers-by giving me a thumbs up or a smile of support. But this was helpful on a whole new level.

There's a large poster that everyone signed, with good wishes, that will be mine. It means every bit as much to me as the dollars that are raised from the event.

I was asked to say why I was doing the walk, and I talked too much around the question. What I should remember to say each time is that walking is nothing compared to round after round of chemotherapy or radiation. I am an extremely fortunate person, to have good health and excellent medical care myself. So I will do what I can to ensure that the money is there for medical research...including figuring out how to walk 60 miles in three days.

Meet Amy, my trainer....

Here's Amy, my trainer looking pleasant and harmless in this morning's gym photo because she has not yet begun to put me through 30 minutes of work...if you were to credit my stamina, lack of joint stiffness, replacement of fat with muscle, it would be to Amy, who has put up with me since last fall. On Saturday, she and her mother and her sister and her neice will all participate at Qwest Field in the Susan Koman shorter walk.

There has to be a special form of trust between client and trainer for the client to keep coming back. In Amy's case, she has made the work hard enough for me -- and because I can now see the progress I am making, I want more. She's encourages me with advice on building up my endurance for walking. She doesn't say "of course you can do it!" Rather, she helps me take it a step at a time, monitoring diet and the training walks as well as what we accomplish in the gym. She's my ace-in-the-hole.

"Things do not change; we change." -- Henry David Thoreau

The picture was shot after Christmas, in Philadelphia, where my sister's family and mine gathered for a leisurely lunch. My sister Mary is kneeling down in front, looking younger than all the rest of us. To her right is my son James, and to his right is Dr. Hal Schedl, Mary's father-in-law and friend to Leroy and myself for nearly 40 years. In the back row, Naomi Kark Schedl, artist extraordinare and also our friend for those years, then her granddaughter, Jess. Behind Jess is her father, Paul Schedl, a microbiologist at Princeton, for some reason here waving a hat. That's me in the middle, with Leroy at my side, and our other niece, Elizabeth, on Leroy's left. When we meet, we just pick up the conversation where it left off last time we spoke.

The cousins are close. The first time Jess met James was when I sat him down on the floor in front of her. She was about three, and he about 13 months. She spent several minutes chatting at him, then stood up and said to me: "Well, what good is he? He can't talk."

That story is a nice metaphor for the literate, verbal set of families that we are, and how we've evolved over the years. We've changed, but there is still plenty to talk about. My sister is a 5.5 year survivor of breast cancer, finally off tamoxifen. Though she and I, like James and Jess, will change more in the coming years, I suspect we'll be chatting still when we are in our 90s....

"By the time I get done with you, eleven miles will be nothing..." -- Amy, my trainer

Yesterday and today both blurs of back to back meetings at work. This morning I worked with Amy in the gym. She is quoted above, and I believe she meant it. I am finding the work with machines and weights to be energizing. My form improves steadily.

I saw my podiatrist this afternoon. He was able to reshape my new orthodics somewhat to fit better in the shoe, and carved a bit on my soles. Now I have no excuses, eh? At least I am walking now every day, even on those days I am in the gym.

I'm thinking about trying a 13 mile walk that precedes the opening of the 3 Day Expo on Saturday morning.....the Expo will feature workshops, vendors and talks focused around preparedness for both the camping and the walk itself.

I just mailed in another $2,900 of checks and in kind matches for this walk. What a great feeling!

"We are what we repeatedly do." -- Aristotle

Aristotle is talking about how one moves from individual acts to making a habit. I do hope he is right on this score, since he is talking about achieving excellence.


Overwhelmed today with stories from old friends and spouses of colleagues, who are survivors of breast cancer, one for one year; another for 15 years.

Walking in the Rain...

Neither Mary nor Lisa could walk today, so I set off myself. Ran into a couple of 3 Day Walkers from WaMu's capital markets team, who went back for umbrellas when it started to pour. I kept going and did the full 3.24 miles in a little over an hour. I did not use the sticks which allowed me to focus on good speed and rhythm. Got a very nice note with advice from Vicky, who led the training walk last Saturday. Will get orthodics adjusted later this week since I appear to be sitting too high in my shoes, which are already a half size larger than usual.

Tomorrow a session in the gym with Amy, then I'm going to add a walk around Green Lake after work. This photo is from a trip last summer to the Bloedel Reserve, and reminds me to keep things in perspective.

"Reality is the leading cause of stress amongst those in touch with it." -- Lily Tomlin

Good walk on Friday with Mary on the waterfront again, down to Myrtle Edwards Park and back, including the incline and steps at the Olympic Sculpture Park. I felt like I was walking slower and had some soreness that, unfortunately, I did not pay much attention that night.

Up early on Saturday, carefully checking new fanny pack to be sure I had everything for an 11 mile walk that started at Seward Park. Beautiful location, beautiful trails, but ran out of steam about two hours out on the four hour walk. The stretching was great, but I got behind after we started, leaving my poles behind and then having to go back and then catch back up. My friend Jenny was waiting for me, everyone else having disappeared around the bend a quarter of a mile ahead. I huffed and puffed my way around the park's circle trail, then we headed up along the west side of Lake Washington. But I did not make it all the way up to the I-90 bridge. My rhythm was off, and I had forgotten to put my phone into my fanny pack -- I began to worry that I would not be able to make it back if I did not turn around.

Going into the fourteenth week before the walk, I seem to be caught significantly under the ten mile level that I should be at by now. While the methodology is very clear, the execution sucks. My friend Susan -- who is doing a fundraiser to support my walk on the 15th -- suggested that I try walking without the sticks, that they introduce a note of complexity when I try to synchronize steps with pushes.

I hope also to not to be so hard on myself when I can't hit the training mark, to maintain the courage to be less than excellent.