Day 2Who knew San Diego could get this could? Over the course of the night I proceeded to put on as many layers of clothes as possible. I soon realized the problem was my head and that I was losing a lot of heat from there. Around 2 in the morning I decided to see how bendy I could be and try to tuck my head into my sleeping bag. That did the trick and I fell back asleep before waking up around 4:30. The first thing I did when I woke up was to pound a bottle of Gatorade and water. I then stumbled out of my tent looking for a Porta-Potty. In my search I accidentally made the discovery of a real bathroom with running water and everything. Now I knew how Columbus felt! After cleaning myself up a bit I went back to my tent to pack up. After packing my gear into my bag I proceeded to attempt to pack up my tent too. Not one to follow directions I tried to devise my own way for packing a tent. For the most part it worked with a little stuffing and grunting. I then helped Tim with his and some women who occupied the space behind our tents with theirs. After dropping off my tent and gear to Lloyd in Ryder truck "G", I headed off to breakfast. Bacon, eggs, and hashbrowns greeted me by the dining tent. I sat down and had a leisurely breakfast with some other walkers before realizing how late it had gotten. Hurriedly, I finished off my meal and went off to fill up my water bottles. I picked up my route card for that day and noticed that my fear that Day 2 would be the longest were true. We were be doing 22 miles and I was already running late. I quickly, but thoroughly stretched, and headed off around 7:30. By the time I made it to the first pit stop, I was walker 1,900 something. Now, I know this isn't a race but I didn't like that I was in the back 50%. That's when I decided to see how fast I could walk this route and how much ground I could make up. Being mindful of staying hydrated and fueled, because the last thing I wanted to do was get hurt, or even…well, you know. So I quickly took care of the three R's, if you don't remember what those were then you obviously weren't paying attention, and headed out. I started walking with this woman who happened to have a GPS device with her and we determined that we were walking along at 3.7mph clip. Not too bad, but we were also stuck in a crowd of people which made it difficult to keep a steady pace or pass. At one point I lost her in the crowd so I set off on my own. Along the route I somehow got stuck in a crowd of youngish people who thought it was a good idea to sing 90's music while they walked, as well as initiating the wave. This was pretty entertaining for a while until the sang Ice, Ice, Baby for a third time. That's when I knew I had to pick it up and get out of there. As I left the crowd, I was joined by a couple of other walkers. We all joked how the singing was fun at first but they all needed to learn some new songs. Heading towards lunch I noticed I was entering the campus of UCSD. Dan and Courtney both went there and they mentioned things for me to look out for. Today's lunch was much tastier, it was some sort of chicken wrap that I smothered in taco and hot sauce. Everything tastes good smothered in hot sauce. While I sat there I ran into Sarah and her tent mate/coworker Erin. I lent them some sunscreen and then we went off to start the second half of our day. Sarah and Erin decided to run across the street to take a picture of the water. It was a breathtaking view but I didn't have time to stop. By that point, I had mastered the out of photography while walking. There were some young women in front of me that asked me to take their picture but they didn't want to stop walking. So we figured out a way for me to take the picture with them walking backwards so none of would have to stop. Oh, if only that woman from the orientation video could see us, she would have told us to Stay Alert! Walking down from UCSD toward camp, we had some amazing views and got the chance to walk along the beach. It was a beautiful day out and the water looked so inviting. By the time I got to the last pit stop, I was walker 900 something, having passed about a thousand people over the course of the day. That's also when I ran into Tim, who had left camp right after packing up his tent. We walked the rest of the way together, being joined by Michelle, Jenny, and two young women who worked at some bar called Bub's. As we got closer to camp we couldn't fathom how we were going to get there since it looked like it was on the other side of the water. That's when someone pointed out that we would have to climb up some stairs to take the pedestrian bridge over the water. Climbing stairs was the last thing I, or anyone else for that matter, wanted to do. Seeing us all trying to make our way up the stairs was pretty entertaining, it kind of reminded me of how a toddler climbs stairs. Finally, we made it into camp. 22 miles and 8 hours later I was ready for a shower and a hot meal. I picked up my gear and headed over to my tent location. I pitched my tent as quickly as possible and then headed off to the showers. Afterwards I met up with Tim, Jenny, and Michelle for dinner where we had some strange thing they were calling stir-fry. I wasn't going to complain because it did the job of filling up my stomach. Tim headed off for a massage again and Jenny and Michelle went over to the medical tent to get some blisters worked on. I decided to sit around and watch some more karaoke and a comedienne. When the disco band came on is when I decided it best be time for me to get to bed. Remembering how cold it was the night before and knowing it was going to be colder tonight, I decided to pick up a space blanket and another fleece jacket. The space blanket kind of did it's job that night, except for one minor problem. While I had my head underneath it, the condensation from my breath began to collect on it. By 3am, the space blanket was nice and wet, as well as the outer shell of my sleeping bag. It wasn't too bad so I just threw off the space blanket and ducked my head into my sleeping bag like I had done the night before. |