I started to think about how many more miles would remain during the real walk - I'd have the same exact distance as I'd just walked still in front of me. Was I being ridiculous to think I could make it the whole way? My pace was slowing as I worried. I needed some motivation. At the very last mile, heading home from the far end of my street, I texted my husband to see if he and our son would start walking towards me and we could meet for the final stretch.
Around this same time last year, late August 2016, I registered for this walk for the first time. I did it more or less on a whim, with just over a month to train. Even though I signed up for the half marathon distance, and had never walked that far on purpose ever in my life, I didn't really do any training. I was about four months out from the end of radiation treatment and physical energy was still hard to come by. I remember thinking about training - "I should go for a nice five or six mile walk today" - and then never summoned the physical power to do it. I was walking every day on my commute to work and figured when the day came to walk 13.1 miles I would just dig deep and get it done.
Luckily that's what happened - I finished the half marathon distance, barely. I was happy enough about it at the time. It was a bigger accomplishment than the FitFest earlier that year, which happened only two weeks after radiation treatment, when I was still literally exhausted. The outdoor FitFest is where I learned how much my body had atrophied. It was a beautiful May day, and warmer than normal, with the perfect blue spring sky that is so rare in New England. But even with the weather as motivation, I could not do more than one jumping jack at a time, needing at least five resting minutes between each one. I tried to do some push-ups; for every push-up you completed, another dollar would be donated to the cause. I could only do two half push-ups - I made it all the way down both times, but failed spectacularly trying to get back up. I had no muscles. My son, then four years old and way better at jumping jacks, had come to play the role of personal trainer; he provided just enough motivation for me to stick it out for the whole day without collapsing.
So walking that half marathon a few months later was a big deal when it happened. I was more nervous about logistics. For one, I had never emptied my ostomy bag, which I still had then, in a port-a-potty. It was hard enough to do that in a public restroom, sitting askew, using hair clips to keep my clothes up and out of the way. Doing the same in a small, dark space made me nervous. Maybe my digestion will be slow, I thought the morning of, and I won't have to worry about it. Even more worrisome was the thought of having some emergency and needing to change the bag entirely; that would not work out. That would mean aborting the walk all together, wherever I was. Finishing and getting to a safe, ostomy-appliance-supporting space as quickly as I could was my motivation that day.
Thankfully, there was no emergency, and I finished, feeling relatively victorious. And in the months that followed my strength did return. By January of this year I was nearly my old self. With FitBit as my witness, I walked at least ten thousand steps every day in January. I registered for this year's walk as soon as registration opened that same month, this time for the full marathon distance. I also registered for the FitFest again and started my push-up training. I made it up to six real push-ups before re-connection surgery in February ended that streak, and also my stepping, putting me out of commission for a while. Surgery in May (to finally reverse my ostomy) was another hiccup.
In retrospect, none of that really got in the way. The recovery I had to do this year is the last recovery I expect to ever have to do as a result of having cancer. That's the strongest motivation I've ever known. The finish line at the end of my upcoming marathon walk feels like the finish line - all my fingers crossed, knock on all the wood - and afterward, life will move along so normally, it will be like nothing ever happened. Let's hope.
My texts today did in fact go unanswered. Out of breath and shuffling, I glanced at my phone every several seconds, hoping to see a "Yes, we're on the way!", or to look up and see them skipping towards me. As it happened my husband's phone wasn't nearby and he missed my pleas. But knowing I might see them any second, and even if I didn't, knowing they were just up ahead at home was enough to keep me going.
I have a few slightly-more-than-half-marathon distance training walks to complete before the big day, each one longer than the next, until the penultimate week when the sample plan advises shorter walks and more rest days as the best preparation. I have only made it this far thanks to my family and my friends, my community, my doctors and nurses and so many other caregivers. I will not let you down; I will finish this walk.
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