The road to the 3Day

This morning I took what I consider my first training walk in preparation for next November's Breast Cancer 3Day walk in San Diego. I can't believe I am doing this. I should never have gone to the closing ceremony of this year's walk, even if Karen was in it. Sixty miles in three days. The Germans have a phrase for people like me: "Ich, Narr." It means, "I Fool," or, "You Effing Idiot," or, "Inspire THIS!" I believe I will put "Ich, Narr" on my walk tshirt next November.

When I walk, I am two countries, North Michael and South Michael. The two are separated by the thin nation of Titania. Titania used to be Arthritica, until Arthritica fell to a physicians' coup. You can see it clearly in xrays: titanium hip joints, like gigantic, deformed golf tees, and those chicken scratches between them are some kind of interior metal stitching where they took my prostate cancer out. This maturity business has its hazards, I tell you.

So North Michael is sort of teed up on Titania, and when he leans forward South Michael sort of follows along by dint of the long shafts of the titanium tees rammed halfway down my thigh bones. Missing is the old sense of natural attachment between North and South, but I don't miss it that much, because Arthritica was a dictatorship of pain and evil sadists wielding bone spurs.

Walking doesn't hurt now, which makes a big difference in miles per gallon. I walked for 50 minutes this morning. Yeah, I know. But it's the first day. I don't know how many miles, but this morning I decided not to measure that way. There's no way I will ever be able to walk 20 miles in one day. I am training to walk seven or eight hours in one day.

The farthest I have ever walked at one time was probably eight miles. When I was in college, I was a summer substitute mailman. It turned out to be a great job – second-best job I ever had – but I almost didn't survive the first day. I carried the route in penny loafers because my mailman shoes hadn't come yet. It was June in West Texas, and the route was mean, dusty and long. By noon I was as done as a rest-home ribeye.

I stumbled into the first blocks of the afternoon leg. Three blocks along, a screen door slammed two houses behind me and the resident yelled: "Hey! This isn't my mail! This is Peach Street!" I looked at the letters in my hand. All for Palm Street. One block over.

So I have experienced walking survival. Why I undertake it again, Ich Narr, I do not know. So far, I am walking for my late wife Meredith, for prostate brother Mike Bryant, for Peggy Odam, battling breast cancer in Houston, and for Karen, who this morning walked twice as far as I did in 50 minutes. Did I say I have to raise $2,700 in donations?