Walking for a Cause

One day Marcie from the Heart Walk camped out in our break room trying to get people to sign up for the American Heart Association Walk that was like a week away. After ignoring her while I ate my lunch, I decided to ask the burning question I had "Did I really have to raise money or can I just walk?" -- I had nothing better to do and I can walk 3 miles easily. She said no but showed me how to raise money anyways because "it was nice if you did".

So despite my lackluster funding raising efforts, I showed up at Fox Valley Tech to do the Heart Walk with the very small team from work. I really expected to show up... walk.. get my picture taken.. go home. I didn't expect a whole pre-walk experience. You could learn CPR, get the kids some balloon animals, and collect a bunch of swag. After all the races I have done, I don't need any more swag -- pom-poms, squeeze balls, Frisbees.. just more stuff to sit on a shelf until I see someone to give it to. I let the people who really wanted the swag have the swag. Remember, I was only here to get my daily walk in. Heck I couldn't even think of anyone I was walking because of.

Throwing the Xi

After hearing some stories of heart survivors and getting our blood flowing with Move It to the Groove (well my really bad attempt at it), we headed to the start line to walk around Fox Valley Tech. One lap was 1.5 miles and two laps was 3 miles. Since I did the Fox Cities 5K in 49 minutes, I could do 3.2 miles in under 55 minutes to be back in time for pictures. I kept pace with our team leader, who always practiced his soccer footwork during the walk, and let him know I was going around again after we finished one lap. It was that or sit around for 25-30 minutes while we waited for our picture time. My team was pleasantly surprised I made it back in time for pictures.... I did it in 51 minutes or so.

Depending on when the Heart Walk is next year, I might do it again and maybe I will actually try to raise some money since I remembered that Mini-Tater and the hubby's partner are both heart survivors. Now I have a reason to walk besides just getting my walk in for the day. Or maybe I will go in a completely different direction and do the Autism Speaks Walk.. or maybe both. I just hate asking for donations.