An Amazing 17 Miles

It's Tuesday now, but I think I'm still tired from this weekend's walking! On Saturday morning, Mom came over from Topeka and we started our 17 mile journey, which we had to break up into parts. We walked the dogs almost 3.5 miles, dropped them off, and then headed back out for a much quicker 3.4 miles by ourselves. By 10 a.m., we were already finished with almost 7 miles of our walk and Mom hadn't even blinked.

There was a KU home game on Saturday, so I quickly showered up and got ready to go to the game with Chad while Mom relaxed and lounged around with the dogs. She actually dropped us off at the game so we wouldn't have to deal with parking, and while we cheered on the 'Hawks Mom did some reading at Borders coffee shop. It was pretty hot during the first half of the game, so I was a little worried that our last 10 miles would be a struggled because of the heat. Mom came back and picked us up after our victory (after I walked about a mile in flip flops!), and at home she decided to take a bit of a nap while Chad and I ate an early dinner/late lunch.

I let Mom sleep a little, partially because I thought she needed it, and partially because I was afraid it would be too hot for her after we'd gotten so hot at the game. However, when we headed back out on the journey at about 4:30, the weather was absolutely gorgeous. We headed downtown, walked through a park, walked up the massively steep hill onto campus, passed one of my office buildings and the construction site of the future hotel, wound up another large hill beside the stadium, and wrapped all the way around campus until we came to the Union. The campus was so beautiful and was still filled with tailgaiting students who'd been at it the entire game day!

The Union stop was about five miles in, so we did a little relaxing and stretching before filling up with snacks and fluids and heading back out onto the trail. By the time we left the Union it was getting close to 7:00 and was starting to get dark. We wrapped back around the Campanile on Memorial Drive to the other end of campus, walked down through some neighborhoods of partying students near campus, headed back downtown, walked down New Hampshire to avoid the Saturday night crowds but still got some odd looks from people, and then started heading back west towards home. By this time it was pitch black outside, and Mom and I were both getting really tired! With about 2 miles left we slowed considerably, but we kept plugging along until we arrived back at home at around 8:30. Mom felt better about the fact that I was extremely exhausted too!

Needless to say, I fell asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow Saturday night! My feet hurt terribly when I got out of bed Sunday morning, but I walked about another 6 or so miles that day. Mom got in several miles as well, despite being extremely sore. Hopefully our next long walk won't be such an exhausting all day event!!