Yesterday, I joined March of Dimes WalkAmerica in a ten mile walk around White Rock Lake in Dallas. The beauteous Grace joined me at the starting line.
Grace and I started walking s-l-o-w-l-y with the rest of the horde at 8 AM. I can walk for a long time, as long as I go slowly enough to not start breathing hard.
As we walked, we pointed out other people, etc and talked about our lives, friends, board stuff. You know, the usual.
I pointed out a guy that was walking with a prosthetic foot, which started the running (so to speak 
) joke of the day - “and he’s walking faster than we are”
Women with babies were walking faster than we were, children were walking faster than we were; National guard troops with loaded backpacks were walking faster than we were - but they were just showing off. 
The walk is, among other things, a giant moving billboard. Every company that had sponsored walkers had their employees in t-shirts. Of course, I was wearing a Michaels t-shirt.
Grace was wearing a Sluggy Freelance T 
After we had gone a couple of miles, Grace’s phone rang. (Got to love cell phones) Lord Jim and purrplebear were at the starting line, and wanted to catch up with us. I determined that we were walking a fairly respectable 3 miles an hour. After a short walk, purrp determined that she wasn’t going to catch up with us if we kept that up. So they hitched a ride on a golf cart while we waited for them at checkpoint 5 (somewhere between 3 and 4 miles from the starting point). This is where people were starting to bail. Ha!
When they showed up, we continued the trail. At the halfway point, they had buses taking more people who were bailing.
We had a great time talking, making fun of the snacks and admiring the wild and cultivated flowers along the path. We even sang a little. At one of the checkpoints the hander-outer was saying she wouldn’t give us water unless we sang “Layla”, so Grace and I both started singing. At another point, Grace sang a couple of lines from some song and the people in front of us complimented her excellent singing.
Sadly, Grace and purrp started hurting too much to walk any farther just before we reached the finish lines. I managed to hobble to the finish line - Jim was still walking like he had just started!
We then had to walk to Jim’s car (which I’m sure made up for some of the shortcuts we took) We took Grace back to her car and then Jim, purrp and I ate lunch together and talked even more. The waitress was very impressed with our accomplishment - although I wonder if that was because purrp and I were both hobbling like 80-year olds at that point.
I’m only moderately sore today, and I’ve been gardening and cleaning up, which has helped keep me from stiffening up too much.
I enjoyed the walk, but it was having fellow dopers join me that made it a special day!
So, I’m still moving slow. The long drive home sitting still didn’t help any, I stiffened right up. wry chuckle