The 2017 Immediate Impact Walk

The 2017 Immediate Impact Walk Route

The 2017 Immediate Impact Walk was on Sunday, October 22nd. I'm just now getting to write the blog post with photos.

We had a truly wonderful day. After delaying our event for a week because of poor air quality due to the nearby wildfires, we were relieved that the day was beautiful and clear. It even got much warmer than expected, and got into the mid-70s - nice and sunny!

Unfortunately, we had two walkers who weren't able to work the change of date into their busy schedule, so we had 12 walkers instead of 14 on the actual event date. Frankly, I'm amazed that we were able to have 12 of us, given everyone's busy calendars. We also had one walker who wouldn't have been able to make it on the original date join us for a few miles and for our celebratory lunch after. Yay!

I'm so proud of our group. 14 walkers, and Susan, who worked hard all day as our route-support. We raised over $82,000. (almost $13,000 came from Sharla's Memorial Fund, which will all go to our beneficiary, Metavivor.)


We raised over $82,000!!!

We walked an enormous, 20-mile circle around San Francisco. We began and ended in the Presidio, having a celebratory lunch at the Presidio Social Club. Some of the highlights (and high peaks!) included the Batteries to Bluffs Trail, the Lands End Trails, along the Great Highway, through Golden Gate Park, UP to the very top of Twin Peaks (the highest elevation of the day, and where we took a group photo), down through the Castro (with a bathroom break at Dolores Park), through the Mission, and up into Potrero Hill, into Mission Bay, through the Union Square and the Financial District, UP California Street, a quick break at Lafayette Park, and into the Marina on our way back to the Presidio.

Recap:

We met at 6:00am, wrote names on our memory ribbons (We each write the names of those for whom we are walking, and tie them each to a pole that we carry throughout the entire walk), and circled up. Linda had us each speak the names on each other's ribbons before attaching them to the pole.


Group Shot


Fun group shot


Circled up. Here are our shoes that will take us 20 miles!

We left the Transit Cafe at 6:45 to start our walk. As you can see, it's still dark out.
The sun started to rise by the time we got to the Batteries to Bluffs Trail. It was beautiful!


Starting down the Batteries to Bluffs Trail




Carol and I have been friends for almost 27 years! She's also the one who first got me started in Breast Cancer Walks, and we've been walking together for 8 years.




Climbing up the other side of the Batteries to Bluffs Trail


It was such a beautiful and clear day. Here's the Golden Gate Bridge


View from the Lands End Trail


First bathroom/snack break! Thank you, Susan, for being our route support for the day!


Judy's newly applied temporary tattoo


Here I am after having had my temporary tattoo applied to my enormous calf


Sandy and Trina walking towards Ocean Beach and the Cliff House


one of the many flights of stairs we climbed - this one is probably going up towards Twin Peaks


View of a clear day on our way to the top of Twin Peaks




Climbing up to the top of Twin Peaks


Here I am at the top of Twin Peaks!


Group Shot at the top of Twin Peaks!


Climbing down....

When I looked at our map at the beginning of the day, I saw that we'd have a short bathroom break at Dolores Park around mile 13. I texted Dick to see if he and Wallace wanted to meet us there for a quick visit.


Here's Wallace running towards me after he and Dick had just arrived to Dolores Park. It was certainly a highlight of my day!


Yay, Wallace!


Family photo at Dolores Park


some friendly police officers who took a photo with us near AT&T Park


Irene, Charisse, and Trina


We made it to our Celebratory Lunch!!


Celebratory Lunch! So beautiful, and so good!


Group shot from the opposite side of the table


My cheese burger. It was very good and satisfying


Linda enjoying some cocktails at the end of the day


My Walkmeter Stats


My fitbit stats

Thank you for helping me surpass our original $7,500 Goal!!

Dear Friends and Family,

Great news!! Yesterday afternoon, a sizable matching gift came in and pushed us way over my $7,500 fundraising goal for the Immediate Impact Walk!!

Together, we have now raised a total of $8,680!! I’ve upped my goal to $10,000 and am hoping that we can reach than within the next 2-1/2 weeks before the big event.

THANK YOU all so much for your generosity and support. I simply could not do this without all of you, and I’m am so grateful.

Our little group of 15 walkers (and our Memorial Fund for our dear friend, Sharla) is also doing great in raising money. So far, we have raised a total of $51,990 towards our new goal of $60,000. We are Small but Mighty! That’s our motto!!

I completed my last training walk of the season on Sunday. It was a beautiful and steep 12.5 mile walk on a clear and sunny day.

http://trinachow.blogspot.com/2017/09/sundays-125-mile-hilly-walk.html

I will be traveling with my family for two weeks and will be returning just two days before the 2017 Immediate Impact Walk. I’m hoping jet lag is kind to me! :)

Thank you all again for your unwavering support. I am so grateful.

Love,
Trina

Sunday's 12.5 Mile Hilly Walk

Sunday's hilly route

What a day! We met at the Sport's Basement on Bryant Street in Potrero Hill today, instead of our regular meeting spot in the Presidio. We do this once a season as it enables us to go to parts of SF that we otherwise couldn't reach in a walk 12-14 miles or less. It's a great walk - we did a very similar one last year, and it is one of my favorites.

In a nutshell, we started in Potrero Hill, walked to Hayes Valley, past the Painted Ladies in Alamo Square, Duboce Park, the Castro, up to Kite Hill, then UP to Twin Peaks. From there, we walked down Twin Peaks to Portola, through Diamond Heights, Glen Park Canyon, through Noe Valley to Bernal Heights, up and down the steepest hill in San Francisco (Bradford Street) then through the Mission and back to Potrero Hill. We stopped for lunch about 6 blocks from our destination, so that's where I turned off my walking app (and recorded my fitbit) but we did finish it up afterwards.

A couple of highlights of the day for me:

It was a pretty warm day, but we started at 7:00am when it was still 59 degrees out. I started off with a light jacket, but it came off within the first 3 miles. I looked at the map and figured out that we'd be walking within 2 blocks of my house in the Castro! I called Dick around 8:30 and asked if he could mind walking down two blocks to meet me so I could give him my jacket and not have to lug it around with me for another 10 miles. He surprised me by bringing Wallace with him (yay!) and the two of them joined me for a few blocks before we went up to Kite Hill. It was so good to see my boys!!

The other highlight was walking back to Bradford Street, which I had only first seen on the same walk about a year ago. That was when I took the photo of the steep part of the street and have since used it as my inspiration/subject of the oil painting that I'm currently working on. It was really cool to walk towards and up that street again and see all of those buildings and trees that I've been studying for the last several weeks. It was actually a pretty surreal and very cool experience!

Dick and I will be leaving with my family later this week on vacation. We'll be away for two weeks, so this was my last training walk of the season. It was a really wonderful one to end it on!