The Moonwalk, part deux!
It's hard to believe that exactly seven days ago, I was at the Meadows in Edinburgh, preparing for the Moonwalk! It seems like several weeks, not just one!
So we'd reached the Firth of Forth, dawn was breaking, we were almost halfway ... and we were bursting for the loo. The last set of toilets had been at 11 miles and the volunteers who were staffing the route had advised us to keep going because they were very busy. The queues were long, yes, but nothing like the length of the queues that awaited us at Silverknowe! They were using the public toilets - no rows of Portaloos here - and there must have been only four or five because the queue wound right down from the building to the broad pathway which ran along the front of the estuary. There was also a band, but music didn't help much!
We joined the end of the queue and I pulled on my plastic poncho because the breeze was cool - apparently it went down to 4C overnight (40F), I found out afterwards! - but within a couple of minutes we all felt chilled. Then one of the volunteers kind-of suggested we did what a lot of the walkers had been doing ... visited the undergrowth along the walk route, because the waiting time for these loos was 45 minutes! It wasn't the most hygenic of suggestions but boy, am I glad we took it!
Sunshine on Leith!
Much relieved, we walked on. The sun rose around 4am, a brilliant pulsing ball of light that tinted everything orange. By now we'd passed the half-way mark and I'd gained my second wind. My legs still hurt, but mentally I was feeling much more secure about making it to the finish line. Mary-Jane, unfortunately, wasn't so lucky. Some years earlier she'd fallen and twisted her knee and now it was hurting her badly. At the start of the night, she'd said that she'd be glad to make 15 miles - she'd had a couple of family bereavements which had really affected her Moonwalk preparations and she was walking on very little recent training.
Once or twice, as we walked through Leith, passing by the Royal Yacht Britannia at its moorings at Ocean Terminal, she asked to sit down on a convenient wall. I kept standing and stretched my leg muscles because I knew from experience that if I stopped, my left foot would seize up and it would take a couple of miles to walk it free. We walked past a fruit stop - the quartered oranges were sweet, juicy and refreshing, but I'd have loved a banana! They'd all been eaten, sadly.
Around 18 miles, in a seedy little backstreet in Portobello, Mary-Jane stopped to take some Voltarol. Fi is a GP and she'd brought a couple of tablets - they're an anti-inflammatory and help with mobility; I was given them after my first Caesarean section. We hoped they might see her through because it was becoming very clear now that she was struggling. Her pace had slowed but we'd stayed with her. Another woman, Susan from Elgin, who'd walked with us for a while, had accelerated away but we weren't going to leave Mary-Jane. Getting out of the backstreets helped - we returned to the seafront at Portobello beach, with sand on one side, the tang of the sea in the air and a broad, long promenade to traverse.
We had just passed the 20-mile marker when we saw a woman collapsed on the ground, covered with her space blanket. Some of the volunteers were with her. Fi stopped to check that she was all right but the volunteers said the paramedics had checked her and called for an ambulance which was at that moment making its way down the promenade towards us. And that's when Mary-Jane said that she'd gone far enough. Twenty miles was five farther than she'd thought she'd make, she said, and she insisted that we go on and finish the walk - there was still another couple of hours' worth of effort to go. We checked that she'd be taken back to the Meadows, arranged a meeting-place with her near the Big Pink Tent and set off again, walking more quickly now at our usual pace.
We walked right down Portobello Beach to Joppa and made a turn, moving back onto one of the main routes into the city, walking parallel to the sea with a couple of rows of houses between us and our previous route. As we turned the corner, someone had strung a row of balloons between two trees. They read, "Go Moonwalkers, almost there!" Little things like that really made us smile throughout the walk. Some people had made banners from sheets that they'd hung from windows, or they'd propped up signs to friends or family, or just general messages of goodwill. The sun was fully up now and Edinburgh was beginning to wake. There were more cars on the streets, more people waving or occasionally tooting their horns in support. Some of the volunteers had cups of coffee or tea - there was a network of 'sweeper cars', silver cars with big pink bras on the side, which whizzed up and down the route connecting volunteers or taking walkers who had dropped out back to the Meadows for collection or treatment.
The miles between 21 and 23 were tough. We both hit another wall there, where the world narrows down to one step at a time and the watch for the next white mile marker seems endless. I never knew Edinburgh had so many signs with white backgrounds! After negotiating a couple of roundabouts, though, I realised we were entering Holyrood Park again from the other side, this time, heading through the green and back towards the very centre of Edinburgh. At one stage I saw a three-mile marker, which confused me till I realised that we were walking part of the course we'd already covered so many hours earlier on our descent from Salisbury Crags!
Fortunately we didn't have to tackle the hill of the Royal Mile yet again. No, we had to do some other hills, heading through the Old Town on the Cowgate and Grassmarket, back up towards the Meadows. By now we knew we were on the home straight (though steep!) and we pressed on until we saw the wonderful sight of the 26-mile marker at the entrance to the Meadows. Woo hoo! Almost there!
Superhero Fiona - check out that cape!
I'm poppin' out all over!
As we walked down towards the Big Pink Tent we passed Moonwalkers who'd already finished and been given their medals. They were clapping and calling encouragement as they walked away from the Moonwalk City, as the central meeting-place was known. I'd tried to imagine the finish a couple of times during the walk, but I'd come over all emotional just at the thought of it! Now the end really was in sight - the big red clock ticking away, the word 'FINISH' in huge letters over it, small crowds clapping as we rounded the corner - and all I could think was, "Please don't let me cry!"
I'd pulled off the plastic poncho a mile earlier and freed the poppies from their slumber beneath my hoodie. We both clasped hands and held them above our heads as we crossed the line. I couldn't stop smiling! One of the volunteers put the medal over my head and I said, "There was a time when I honestly thought I'd never make this!"
"Well, you've made it now!" she replied and somehow, I managed not to cry.
The medal is very heavy, with a tartan bra on it (yes, really!) and an inspiring quote on the reverse - "Happiness is a matter of choice, not chance," by someone called Jim Rohn. I think I can safely say I was happy then!
We posed for a couple of official pictures from the Walk's photographer - I must check to see whether they're online yet! - then wandered through the place, looking for Mary-Jane. Moonwalkers were everywhere, sitting, sleeping, wandering around, many swathed in their space blankets. Mary-Jane was sitting on a chair; she came up to us and we hugged. I still couldn't quite believe I'd made it! After feeling so awful early on in the walk, I was shocked that I had somehow managed to make it through to the end. And the day had only just begun!
Can't quite believe that it's all over ....
Originally we'd hoped to spend time relaxing before coming home, but inevitably our plans had changed. Mary-Jane had spent two hours waiting for us and was ready for home; Fi had to take her son to his football prizegiving in one of the local churches at 11am and I had my son's 13th birthday party at Hampden Football Stadium that afternoon. So we left Moonwalk City, hailed a taxi, went back to the car park and headed home. It was a bit of an anti-climax, in a way, but that's life sometimes! We stopped off at a service station where Fi and I got a takeaway coffee but by the time we reached the outskirts of Edinburgh, I was really tired so we stopped off at the Park and Ride near Currie! I managed a 10-minute power nap which recharged me enough to drive home safely and we got back to Strathaven at 10.45am.
Looking back now, a week later, I can say that the Moonwalk was probably the third hardest thing I've done in my life and the hardest thing I've done by choice! (The two hardest things were caring for my babies after each Caesarean section!) Apparently you use up almost 3,000 calories on the walk, which would help to account for why Fi and I both stuffed in biscuits for a couple of nights afterwards! Amazingly I wasn't too sore; I had several hot baths and keeping moving at the birthday party was probably the best idea, though by the time it was over I felt as if any energy I had was completely drained away. I think I slept 12 hours, off and on, that Sunday evening! And at least we didn't have any blisters. Vaseline and a pair of good shoes rock!
I would definitely do the Moonwalk again - maybe not next year, but the year after, I think. I'd certainly make sure it wasn't on the same day as Gala Day! And I wouldn't organise a birthday party for afterwards, either. (Though it was the only day we could hold it at Hampden - Neil Diamond was playing there the previous weekend, Bon Jovi this weekend!) But I can safely say that it was an incredible experience and one I'm very glad I was part of. I'm going to keep up with the walking and see if I can't maintain the slow but steady weight loss. And between us, Fi and I have raised around £250 ($500) for breast cancer charities.
Overall, it was a great challenge; I'm really pleased I did it and managed to make it to the end. My gran died from breast cancer 20 years ago and I have a very close friend who is a survivor, so this was quite a personal thing for me. Doing the Moonwalk and Cancer Research's Race for Life has given me a chance to give something back and yet gain something too: improved fitness; an exercise I enjoy; even some lost weight. And if the money we raised helps just one woman with cancer, breast or otherwise, then it's all been worth it.
So we'd reached the Firth of Forth, dawn was breaking, we were almost halfway ... and we were bursting for the loo. The last set of toilets had been at 11 miles and the volunteers who were staffing the route had advised us to keep going because they were very busy. The queues were long, yes, but nothing like the length of the queues that awaited us at Silverknowe! They were using the public toilets - no rows of Portaloos here - and there must have been only four or five because the queue wound right down from the building to the broad pathway which ran along the front of the estuary. There was also a band, but music didn't help much!
We joined the end of the queue and I pulled on my plastic poncho because the breeze was cool - apparently it went down to 4C overnight (40F), I found out afterwards! - but within a couple of minutes we all felt chilled. Then one of the volunteers kind-of suggested we did what a lot of the walkers had been doing ... visited the undergrowth along the walk route, because the waiting time for these loos was 45 minutes! It wasn't the most hygenic of suggestions but boy, am I glad we took it!
Sunshine on Leith!
Much relieved, we walked on. The sun rose around 4am, a brilliant pulsing ball of light that tinted everything orange. By now we'd passed the half-way mark and I'd gained my second wind. My legs still hurt, but mentally I was feeling much more secure about making it to the finish line. Mary-Jane, unfortunately, wasn't so lucky. Some years earlier she'd fallen and twisted her knee and now it was hurting her badly. At the start of the night, she'd said that she'd be glad to make 15 miles - she'd had a couple of family bereavements which had really affected her Moonwalk preparations and she was walking on very little recent training.
Once or twice, as we walked through Leith, passing by the Royal Yacht Britannia at its moorings at Ocean Terminal, she asked to sit down on a convenient wall. I kept standing and stretched my leg muscles because I knew from experience that if I stopped, my left foot would seize up and it would take a couple of miles to walk it free. We walked past a fruit stop - the quartered oranges were sweet, juicy and refreshing, but I'd have loved a banana! They'd all been eaten, sadly.
Around 18 miles, in a seedy little backstreet in Portobello, Mary-Jane stopped to take some Voltarol. Fi is a GP and she'd brought a couple of tablets - they're an anti-inflammatory and help with mobility; I was given them after my first Caesarean section. We hoped they might see her through because it was becoming very clear now that she was struggling. Her pace had slowed but we'd stayed with her. Another woman, Susan from Elgin, who'd walked with us for a while, had accelerated away but we weren't going to leave Mary-Jane. Getting out of the backstreets helped - we returned to the seafront at Portobello beach, with sand on one side, the tang of the sea in the air and a broad, long promenade to traverse.
We had just passed the 20-mile marker when we saw a woman collapsed on the ground, covered with her space blanket. Some of the volunteers were with her. Fi stopped to check that she was all right but the volunteers said the paramedics had checked her and called for an ambulance which was at that moment making its way down the promenade towards us. And that's when Mary-Jane said that she'd gone far enough. Twenty miles was five farther than she'd thought she'd make, she said, and she insisted that we go on and finish the walk - there was still another couple of hours' worth of effort to go. We checked that she'd be taken back to the Meadows, arranged a meeting-place with her near the Big Pink Tent and set off again, walking more quickly now at our usual pace.
We walked right down Portobello Beach to Joppa and made a turn, moving back onto one of the main routes into the city, walking parallel to the sea with a couple of rows of houses between us and our previous route. As we turned the corner, someone had strung a row of balloons between two trees. They read, "Go Moonwalkers, almost there!" Little things like that really made us smile throughout the walk. Some people had made banners from sheets that they'd hung from windows, or they'd propped up signs to friends or family, or just general messages of goodwill. The sun was fully up now and Edinburgh was beginning to wake. There were more cars on the streets, more people waving or occasionally tooting their horns in support. Some of the volunteers had cups of coffee or tea - there was a network of 'sweeper cars', silver cars with big pink bras on the side, which whizzed up and down the route connecting volunteers or taking walkers who had dropped out back to the Meadows for collection or treatment.
The miles between 21 and 23 were tough. We both hit another wall there, where the world narrows down to one step at a time and the watch for the next white mile marker seems endless. I never knew Edinburgh had so many signs with white backgrounds! After negotiating a couple of roundabouts, though, I realised we were entering Holyrood Park again from the other side, this time, heading through the green and back towards the very centre of Edinburgh. At one stage I saw a three-mile marker, which confused me till I realised that we were walking part of the course we'd already covered so many hours earlier on our descent from Salisbury Crags!
Fortunately we didn't have to tackle the hill of the Royal Mile yet again. No, we had to do some other hills, heading through the Old Town on the Cowgate and Grassmarket, back up towards the Meadows. By now we knew we were on the home straight (though steep!) and we pressed on until we saw the wonderful sight of the 26-mile marker at the entrance to the Meadows. Woo hoo! Almost there!
Superhero Fiona - check out that cape!
I'm poppin' out all over!
As we walked down towards the Big Pink Tent we passed Moonwalkers who'd already finished and been given their medals. They were clapping and calling encouragement as they walked away from the Moonwalk City, as the central meeting-place was known. I'd tried to imagine the finish a couple of times during the walk, but I'd come over all emotional just at the thought of it! Now the end really was in sight - the big red clock ticking away, the word 'FINISH' in huge letters over it, small crowds clapping as we rounded the corner - and all I could think was, "Please don't let me cry!"
I'd pulled off the plastic poncho a mile earlier and freed the poppies from their slumber beneath my hoodie. We both clasped hands and held them above our heads as we crossed the line. I couldn't stop smiling! One of the volunteers put the medal over my head and I said, "There was a time when I honestly thought I'd never make this!"
"Well, you've made it now!" she replied and somehow, I managed not to cry.
The medal is very heavy, with a tartan bra on it (yes, really!) and an inspiring quote on the reverse - "Happiness is a matter of choice, not chance," by someone called Jim Rohn. I think I can safely say I was happy then!
We posed for a couple of official pictures from the Walk's photographer - I must check to see whether they're online yet! - then wandered through the place, looking for Mary-Jane. Moonwalkers were everywhere, sitting, sleeping, wandering around, many swathed in their space blankets. Mary-Jane was sitting on a chair; she came up to us and we hugged. I still couldn't quite believe I'd made it! After feeling so awful early on in the walk, I was shocked that I had somehow managed to make it through to the end. And the day had only just begun!
Can't quite believe that it's all over ....
Originally we'd hoped to spend time relaxing before coming home, but inevitably our plans had changed. Mary-Jane had spent two hours waiting for us and was ready for home; Fi had to take her son to his football prizegiving in one of the local churches at 11am and I had my son's 13th birthday party at Hampden Football Stadium that afternoon. So we left Moonwalk City, hailed a taxi, went back to the car park and headed home. It was a bit of an anti-climax, in a way, but that's life sometimes! We stopped off at a service station where Fi and I got a takeaway coffee but by the time we reached the outskirts of Edinburgh, I was really tired so we stopped off at the Park and Ride near Currie! I managed a 10-minute power nap which recharged me enough to drive home safely and we got back to Strathaven at 10.45am.
Looking back now, a week later, I can say that the Moonwalk was probably the third hardest thing I've done in my life and the hardest thing I've done by choice! (The two hardest things were caring for my babies after each Caesarean section!) Apparently you use up almost 3,000 calories on the walk, which would help to account for why Fi and I both stuffed in biscuits for a couple of nights afterwards! Amazingly I wasn't too sore; I had several hot baths and keeping moving at the birthday party was probably the best idea, though by the time it was over I felt as if any energy I had was completely drained away. I think I slept 12 hours, off and on, that Sunday evening! And at least we didn't have any blisters. Vaseline and a pair of good shoes rock!
I would definitely do the Moonwalk again - maybe not next year, but the year after, I think. I'd certainly make sure it wasn't on the same day as Gala Day! And I wouldn't organise a birthday party for afterwards, either. (Though it was the only day we could hold it at Hampden - Neil Diamond was playing there the previous weekend, Bon Jovi this weekend!) But I can safely say that it was an incredible experience and one I'm very glad I was part of. I'm going to keep up with the walking and see if I can't maintain the slow but steady weight loss. And between us, Fi and I have raised around £250 ($500) for breast cancer charities.
Overall, it was a great challenge; I'm really pleased I did it and managed to make it to the end. My gran died from breast cancer 20 years ago and I have a very close friend who is a survivor, so this was quite a personal thing for me. Doing the Moonwalk and Cancer Research's Race for Life has given me a chance to give something back and yet gain something too: improved fitness; an exercise I enjoy; even some lost weight. And if the money we raised helps just one woman with cancer, breast or otherwise, then it's all been worth it.