I Walked for Women

Well, I did it! On Saturday I completed 20km of the Walk for Women to support the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital.

I awoke early in the morning to the sound of rain. Oh no, not a rainy day! However, the skies cleared, and while there were some showers in the early section of the walk, it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting (a rainy day had been forecast).

My teammates set off from Coogee at 6:30am, when it was still dark. Two of them got cracking and set off at an amazing pace. The other two, who are not originally from Australia, decided that they were going on a Saturday stroll, sightseeing, taking lots of photos and generally having a fun time! They mosied on along – its a very scenic route – eventually making it to their finish point at North Sydney long after I had joined up with the other two there for my section of the walk. They had great fun, and completed their 30km, so that was all that mattered!

Belinda, Jenny and I left North Sydney at about 12:20pm, continuing with their very fast pace. At this point, we were the third team (no, it wasn’t a race!) to have already left North Sydney. We walked along the highway and then backstreets to our checkpoint in Chatswood. Here I met James Grainger, who is the head of the Australian Fund supporting the work of the hospital. He was manning the checkpoint, and it was great to meet him.

I did want to stop next door for a quick visit to Tessuti Fabrics, but there just wasn’t time! We were wanting to finish as quickly as possible to beat the likely showers. The less time we were walking, the less time we were likely to be rained on!

From Chatswood we made our way through back streets to St Ives. Partway through this leg, my family turned up alongside the road, with posters that Rainbow Girl and The Bookworm had painted saying “Go Mum!” They were a lovely encouragement, and we didn’t know where they were going to pop up next!

This section of the walk was VERY hilly, and so while I was still feeling very fresh, Belinda and Jenny were really feeling the effects of the first 30km that they had done before I joined them. So I scooted off ahead, with map in hand. In the back of Gordon, my daughters joined me walking, while my husband went off to get petrol (gas) for the car. It was lovely having them walk with me.

After about 2km, my husband came back and The Bookworm decided to join him again in the car. Rainbow Girl wanted to keep walking. We reached the next checkpoint and were greeted by quite a team of cheerer-on-ers! The Bookworm and Belinda’s kids were holding the painted posters, and we all received quite a cheer as we arrived.

Signed in, toilet stop, and a drink, signed out and off again. Rainbow Girl had decided she wanted to keep going – to the end! It was another 5.5km, and she was adamant that she was going to do it! (She’d already done 2 hours of gymnastics training in the morning!) We really did not slow our pace for her, and she kept up just fine, at some points running ahead and *dancing* up the hills!

After the St Ives checkpoint, we started getting misty rain, but it was really just nuisance rain. If I hadn’t been wearing my Walk for Women hat, I might have noticed it, but because it kept it off my glasses, it made no difference to us. For the last 20 minutes of the walk though, it really did rain. But we had so little left to go that we didn’t let it bother us – and it wasn’t long enough to seep into our shoes, which is what we had all been dreading!

We arrived at the finish at Turramurra Anglican Church at 4:20pm, exactly 4 hours since I had joined my team at North Sydney. Rainbow Girl had walked 8.5km with us, and The Bookworm had done nearly 2. I was so proud of them!

We were the third group to finish, and eventually Jenny worked out that she and Belinda had done the whole 50km in about 8 hours, 20 minutes, excluding breaks and stops – Wow! That meant they broke the 6km per hour rate (and I and Rainbow Girl did too, for our parts).

The day was finished off with a BBQ dinner for families (who had provided us all with so much support – thanks!) and the walkers. Over the afternoon and evening, walkers kept coming in, finishing their walks to rousing cheers and clapping. It was a fabulous atmosphere.

Jenny and Belinda were quite shattered, but then they’d just walked 50km! I was feeling quite fine, actually, so I was pleased that I had set myself a reasonable distance that I managed well. The next morning, all of us reported that we had recovered well, and felt great! I’m still amazed that I felt completely normal, with no muscle strains or aches at all!

Thank you to all who sent messages of encouragement, and those who were able to generously donate to support the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital. I was thrilled to receive some more donations on the day, and though I still don’t know what the total I have raised will be (I may never know seeing some donated through the website and did not tell me their $ amount), I think that I might get to $2500! Wow, everyone! Thanks for your AMAZING generosity!

It is not too late to donate, so if you would like to, please go to http://www.hamlinfistula.org.au/donate. Fill out the form, and put “Walk for Women YStanton” in the Event Field. If you are not in Australia, put 0000 in the Postcode field. If you are in Australia, donations of $2 and over are tax deductible. If you can then let me know of your donation, I can add it to my personal tally. This will mean that next year if they run it again (and Rainbow Girl wants them to, because she wants to be an official participant and walk 10-11km!) I will have a donation tally to try to exceed!

It was a wonderful, wonderful day, and I am so pleased to have been able to take part in supporting and raising money for the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital. I would LOVE to take part again next year, and we are all trying to encourage Bec and Kym Abbott, who organised it all that we all want to do it again. They did an AMAZING job of organising the walk, and it was incredible to think it was the first time the walk had ever been run, because it all worked so seamlessly! Thanks to Bec and Kym for their personal sacrifices in organising it – it must have been so much work and effort.

I spoke with James (the fund head) at the BBQ and asked if they know what the online donation tally was up to. He didn’t give me a $ amount, but said that it will have been a fabulous fundraiser for the fund. They’re only a small team of about 3 or 4 people, in the Australian fund office, so its grass-roots fundraising efforts like this that make all the difference to them.

Thank you again to all who encouraged me and supported the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital on my behalf!