3rd and final Day.

We woke up at 4:00a.m. in hopes to get going by 5:00a.m. We needed to take down our tent and repack it, they (3Day) donate the tents to the Girl Scouts. So we made it down to breakfast about 5:30a.m. and onto the loading buses that got us down by Lake Michigan. All I kept thinking was I only have 20 miles to go and tomorrow I can sleep in as much as I wanted too. Today Melissa was having a hard time, we kept pushing eachother to finish. I pretty much ignored the pain, because I knew that it would be over. No more waking up to do 20 miles. Thank goodness. The volunteers along the street were just wonderful people, every stop we made Mel would hug all the people. I'm a hugger, but I just couldn't do it. I was pooped. About 2 miles from lunch I got my "Comadre" and boy was that unexpected, I was so upset, first the blisters and now this. Oh geez. At lunch time I was going to see the medics, but the line was so long I decided just to forget it. This is when all the fun stuff starts. I became delirious.. well actually we both did. We started playing mind games and started power walking with like 10 miles to go :o) Melissa was screaming all the way down Michigan avenue asking for High Fives and I was chanting and making everyone cheer.. LOL... Did I say we were DELIRIOUS!!! Well let me tell you, you can't imagine how bad it got. I was leaving all the girls behind, by the time we got to the "Cheesecake Factory" at the watertower. I was like faster than all the skinny chicks, they couldn't even keep up. I just wanted to finish and I just needed to go faster and faster. If you've seen the Olympics, I was one of those Speed Walkers, yes ME!! My BFF Jennifer surprised me on Michigan and like Jackson, I couldn't stop screaming with excitement, but I also couldn't stop walking . We rested at our last and final pit stop with only 1 mile to go. I didn't want to sit because my blisters were killing me, I just wanted to keep going, but I decided to sit for a minute and that was my worst mistake. I could hardly get up. After that I think I started walking like a turtle, nice and slow. We finally made it to the finish line and there were ton of people cheering us on. I had my name on my shirt and people were screaming "Good job, Cyndi", I couldn't stop crying. It was definitely the best and worst experience of my life. I might do it again :o)

Mari, Izzy, Jennifer and my son Louie were all there for me at the end. With the final walk I heard my sister call my name and I started screaming hers but I couldn't see her and in the sea of all these people I saw my son and he was like my sun on a cloudy day. The closing ceremonies were beautiful, very emotional and inspirational. We all took off our shoes in respect to all the women and men lost to breast cancer.

The picture you see adjacent are of my feet. Swollen, bruised and blistered. You really can't see a good picture. But I had 6 toes... my pinkie had an attachement. I would show you that picture, but it's pretty disgusting.

I hope that one day, there's a cure so that all of our children or theirs would live in a world without breast cancer.

Thank you to all my donors!!!