Schrempp Walking Update 1

Schrempp Walking Update #3 – May 2002

Hello all!!! I can't believe that in two months, I will be walking 60 miles in 3 days. After the March Update, I pulled a ligament in my foot, and I was not able to do much walking for a couple of weeks. Of course, this totally frustrated me because we were doing awesome with our mileage. To help keep in shape while my foot was healing, I bought a stationary bike from Goodwill. One weekend, I broke down crying because I was so frustrated that my foot hurt every time I went walking. As I was crying, I told Bob that I never thought I would want to go walking; let alone that I would want (crave) to go walking outside. I learned so much about myself that day. We were able to get back on track with our training, and we are up to 30 miles on the weekends. So far, we have completed a total of 672 miles, which does not even count the miles I walk during my breaks and lunches at work.

I have finally figured out the shoe problem. When I went to the sports medicine doctor for my foot, he noticed that I was wearing a shoe for a pronator while I am a supinator. I went straight to the local shoe store and bought a new pair of shoes. Then it was onto arch supports. I tried three different brands until I found a sport arch support by Birkenstock. I now have great shoes, and my feet don’t ache the morning after a 16 mile walk.

In the last newsletter, I mentioned that Bob and I wanted to do a marathon. We have signed up for the San Diego Marathon in January 2003. We are totally stoked about it. The race has only 3,000 people, and they have an early start for walkers: 5:30am. I guess that I am going to have to work on getting up before 9:00am on the weekends. If anyone is interested in the marathon, the web address is www.sdmarathon.com.

In the middle of April, Bob and I competed in the Wine Country Half Marathon in Paso Robles. The 13.2-mile course wandered in and out of the wine vineyards in the SLO North County. Since we were totally motivated, we walked at 3.5 miles an hour (which is really about 3.3 mph with pit stops) and completed the course in just under 4 hours. The organizers actually closed the course at 11 o’clock, but we were feeling awesome so we kept walking. We had plenty of water and snacks, and finished at Noon. They had been cleaning up for an hour when we finished. We actually got to cross the finish line because they had not taken it down yet. The organizers were so wonderful that they unpacked oranges and bananas for us to eat. The buses back to the parking lot had all stopped running, so one of the women drove us the mile to our car. We had such a great day!!!!

On to the walk: For Day Two and Three on the Walk, I am creating two "help me through it" shirts. The Day Two People who BELIEVE in me shirt will be the first names of everyone who has supported me through this adventure. The Day Three People who INSPIRE me shirt (to get me through the last 20 miles) will be the first names of women and men who have fought Breast Cancer. I need your help with my People who INSPIRE me shirt. If you have a loved one, friend, co-worker, or … who has fought Breast Cancer, please e-mail me their first names, so I can add them to my shirt. I know that Day Three is going to be very hard emotionally and physically, and I will need the inspiration of everyone on this shirt to get me through the walk.

As of May 1st, we have raised $4010 to help with the fight against Breast Cancer. June 1^st is the last day to make a donation and have it show on my "total donations" list. To help make it easier to make a donation, Bob has created a Katie Schrempp “We are Athletes” website with a link to make on-line donations. Go to www.calpoly.edu/~kschremp, click on the link for the 3-Day Walk and then click on the donation button and follow the instructions from there. We have added pictures and stories about our walking. I hope they give you some good chuckles. If you have any questions, e-mail or give us a call at 805-438-5437. My e-mail address is kschrempp@alumni.calpoly.edu and Bob's is bschrem pp@alumni .calpoly.edu.

Thank you, Katie and Bob