Day 3

Wow, day 3 was HARD! Our neighbors were up at 4 packing their stuff, not very quietly either. So we laid there trying to ignore them for an hour. Breakfast opened at 5 and they wanted us out of camp by 7. They were busing us over to the arboretum by the University to start. The first buses left at 6:15. Our plan was to eat while it was dark and cold, then pack up our stuff because hopefully it would be getting light by then. Nope, it was still dark. It's quite the challenge to find your things, get dressed and try to look pretty in a dinky tent with only a small flashlight. But we did our best and got our stuff crammed back into our bags. It was slowly getting light by now as we climbed out of the tent to cram it back into it's bag. Let me tell you how fun it is to take down a tent that's dripping wet with dew when you're FREEZING and wearing shorts and a thin coat you know you're going to have to carry later... but we did it and hustled to get in line, I think it was 6:30 when we finally got there. It took about 45 minutes to get through the line. We were SO happy to sit in a soft, comfy chair! It felt SO good! The bus was WARM and it was nice to relax for a few minutes before walking again. Here we are getting in some stretching after they dropped us off. Tara and I didn't want to be in the back of the pack again. We were desperate not to be put on a bus. The rest of our team was very understanding so we pulled in front of them again. By now my left hip was really sore, as well as my feet but I knew it was the last day and pushed though it. We saw more and more peopel walking in flip flops with their feet bandaged up - YIKES!We walked through the UW campus, it was beautiful!We walked through the Sorority houses and apparently they had just got their housing assignments. It was a PARTY! I'm not sure how happy they were about us walking through, but it was fun for us! Each house had LOUD music playing with all the girls outside dancing and taking pictures. This made me laugh so hard, the median in the road was full of BOYS just gawking at them. We then made our way up to Greenlake and the first cheering section of the day. I had told Kurt not to worry about coming to a cheering section because we had no idea what time we'd be there, so just come to closing ceremonies. As we're walking through all the cheering, I'm recording this, and let's be honest, I'm completely delirious by this point. (notice at the very end of the video, you can see Matthew & Kurt) Tara pointed out somebody to my right, I noticed the signs and said "oh that's so nice" and then kept walking looking to my left. Tara then said "no, LOOK" and I screamed because I recognized my family. Quite embarrasing, but what a wonderful surprise on day 3, just what I needed to get me through to the end.

We continued around Greenlake, people cheering us most of the way around,Then all the way around the zoo. Lunch was at Gasworks Park and by now it was getting HOT! It was really nice to relax for a while, but we hurried off again so we wouldn't be put on the bus. The 8 miles after lunch were VERY HARD. We lived for the people with spray bottles and some nice people gave us frozen gateraid. YUM! We were HOT and SORE and TIRED. We talked about the new seasons of our favorite shows, movies, and whatever would keep our minds off of our aches and pains. We knew we were ending up at the Seattle Center and we could see the Space Needle was just a few blocks away. However, we circled it for miles - most of the time walking away from it. We think these guys were window washers and they sprayed us with their power washer. We LOVED IT!

Towards the end, we had 1 more pit stop that closed at 3. We knew we had to get there before that to not get put on a bus. A group of us weren't running (because that's a no-no) but walking super fast from block to block trying to get there in time. We did stop to get this picture -We did make it to the last pit stop, grabbed a quick orange and took off again. We were thrilled because we knew we MADE IT! We had 2 miles to go and it was very pretty walking down along the water front.

We're so CLOSE! By now I'm really trying to fight back the tears - because I'm proud and happy to be done, plus I'm completely exhausted.

This is us coming into the finish line. It was the best feeling - all the aches went away!

We then waited in the "holding pen" for a little while where we got our shirts and they got us ready to walk into closing ceremonies. It was very HOT in there... but everyone was so supportive - it was like crossing another finish line!Walking into closing ceremonies was awesome.

I'm so happy I had this opportunity to walk with my friends in honor of their loved ones. Next year we're talking about being cheerleaders along the route, and possibly attempting this again in 2010. We'll see!