6.28.2010

The 18/15 Training Weekend is Done!

This past weekend was the most intense training weekend on the 24 Week Training Schedule - 18 miles on Saturday and 15 miles on Sunday.  Generally, if you can complete the big 18/15, you should be in pretty good shape to walk the full 60 miles of the Breast Cancer 3 Day.  The 18/15 is always intense, and this past weekend was no exception with temperatures in the 90s and strong beating sun all day.

As always, I wanted to mark my big training weekend with some great adventures, which I used my new Nikon Coolpix camera to document.  They say you should test out all your "gear" for the 3 Day and for me, my camera is a huge part of my gear.  So I used this weekend to really test out my tiny new camera (a belated birthday gift!) while pushing my poor feet to the max!

On Saturday, I decided to walk my 18 miles at one of my favorite places to train - the Silver Comet Trail!  The Silver Comet starts in a NW suburb of Atlanta and stretches along an old railroad bed all the way to the Alabama border.  The trail is paved, smooth and relatively hill free, making it a fairly easy walk with very scenic views.  There are also trailheads every five miles or so where you can refill water bottles, grab a snack and go to the bathroom.  All in all, it is the perfect place to train for the 3 Day!

Pictures from my 18 mile walk on the Silver Comet Trail:





On Sunday, I wanted to satisfy my inner city girl and spend some time exploring Atlanta beyond where I usually walk.  I decided to park down at the Georgia World Congress Center, next to the CNN Center and Centennial Olympic Park and then walk all the way back up to my house in Midtown.  This route, which is primarily along the famous Peachtree Street led me past all kinds of great sites, as you can see in my pictures.  While it seems far when you're driving it, it's actually only five miles!  From there, I did a five mile loop through the adorable Virginia Highland neighborhood, an area I walk in frequently.  After stretching, grabbing a snack and refilling my water bottles at my house, I headed back down to my car.  This time, I followed a slightly different route and detoured through the Atlantic Station shopping district before walking south on West Peachtree Street.  In the end, it turns out that my 15 mile walk was actually 18.5 miles - oops!  Seeings as I have to walk all those miles and more in less than four weeks, I guess it's just as well that I walked those extra miles this weekend.  All told, I had a great weekend of walking and I got to see a lot of this city that I love!

Pictures from my 18.5 mile walk around Atlanta:





After 36.5 miles, my feet were definitely sore.  I have a couple small blisters on my toes (ironically due to some corn protectors I was wearing to prevent blisters in another place!) and one large blister forming on my left heel that is seriously painful.  That blister appears to be forming deep underneath my thick callouses, so I'm pretty concerned about what could happen there.  I'll just have to keep an eye on it as the Boston 3 Day for the Cure inches ever closer!

If you would like to see my pictures from this past weekend in non-slide show form (and maybe even leave some comments!), please visit the following albums on my Picasa page:


If you are impressed with my training weekend or just moved by this great cause, please consider making a fully tax deductible donation to Susan G. Komen for the Cure by clicking on the link at the top right hand side of the page or by visiting my personal page on the 3 Day website, here.

7 comments:

Cat said...

What great photos, Kristen! Really beautiful! Did you walk all that time solo? Congrats on the huge training weekend and keep a close eye on those blisters, especially that heel one! Thanks for sharing!

Tired Mom Tésa said...

Congrats on such a wonderful accomplishment! I love the slideshow too, what a great idea to bring your camera along. Hope your blisters heal quickly!

MustBeNuts said...

Great job on making it through the Big One! Fantastic photos too. Ugh on the blisters, hope they heal quickly. I'm with Cat in wondering if you did all that walking by yourself...

MustBeNuts said...

Great job on making it through the Big One! Fantastic photos too. Ugh on the blisters, hope they heal quickly. I'm with Cat in wondering if you did all that walking by yourself...

Christina said...

Congrats!! I'm with Cat... did you walk all that way alone??!! I'm getting nervous about my first 10-mile walk and you just made walking 30+ miles look pretty easy! :)

Jami said...

Wow! I am VERY impressed, Kristen! I love the pictures to document your little journey and share your experiences with us. It also reminds us that there are many ways to experience our training walks. I sincerely hope those heal in superhuman time!

Kristen Sager Cincotta said...

Thanks for the kind comments everyone, I'm sorry I didn't reply to them sooner!

To answer everyone's question, yes, I did all of this walking by myself. My teammates are spread up and down the east coast and my local Atlanta walkers aren't quite up to this mileage just yet since their walk isn't until October. I always listen to my favorite podcasts or Yankees baseball games on my phone while I walk though so I never feel like I'm by myself.

My blisters turned out to be not much to write home about. The small blisters on my toes are still there but they aren't bothering me at all. They formed because of the way my toes rub together rather than from my shoes, so they don't hurt at all. The "blister" on my heel is really just a small amount of fluid under my thick callouses. It was really inflamed after walking 30+ miles but after a few days, it calmed down and hasn't hurt at all. Provided that the callouses don't rip off here in the next two weeks, I think everything will be just fine.

Thanks again! I truly love getting all these comments even if I'm terrible about acknowledging them!

~ Kristen