Healthy Thursday: 5K Walk!

A month or six weeks ago a friend invited me to participate in a 5K walk for diabetes.  Family and friends have fun in marathons, half-marathons, lots of 5Ks, and even Century Bike Rides.  Surely I could do a 5K walk, so I put it on the calendar.

This morning I left the house with my stroller at about 8:45AM and drove reasonably fast to the starting point, signed the waiver (which include animal bites and falls!!!), used the facilities, picked up a bottle of water and a banana and headed out 8 minutes before the crowd was scheduled to leave.

There were lots of things to see along the way:  a youngster soccer game, some plants I had never seen before, some stone railway markers....B 137...no idea what that meant, for quite a while. In fact, until I saw a B 138 which I thought must have meant I had walked a mile. I did not know what the B was for, though.

Boston  138 miles to go!

Multiple bridges, a couple of road crossings, and 50 minutes later I came to a sign telling me I had reached the turnaround point!  That made me very happy!  Probably a quarter of a mile back down the track the rest of the walkers passed me, moving fast.

Interesting plants.

At the turnaround point I stopped and sat on the stroller seat, pulled off my shoes and removed as much gravel as I could then returned the shoes to my feel, and headed back to the starting point.  I hoped the trip back would go faster.  After a while the friend who had invited me and the Walk organizers caught up with me going to the turnaround.  They must have stopped for a while there, taking down the sign, and then headed back to home base.  They passed me some time later.

WRJ 5 marker....almost done!

When I came to the stone marker I saw on the outbound trip, I noted that it said:  WRJ 6.  OH!  I got it then:  it was six miles to White River Junction.  The other side of the marker said B 138...must mean 138 miles to Boston.  Duh!  This used to be a railroad track that had been turned into a hiking trail.




Eventually I did get back to the starting point.  There was a woman there with a camera who told me that now I got to have my picture taken...not something I really enjoy but she said she took everyone's photographs, so I let it happen.

End of the Line!

Several people smiled at me and I was handed a beautiful yellow chrysanthemum and told, "Congratulations!"   That was so nice. I love flowers.  Of course, I think it might have been a relief to the organizers to have me cross the finish line because then they could comfortably go home knowing all the walkers had come in.


It was a nice day.  Shins and ankles recognize the effort!