3 Day - Day 1

Day 1
Our adventure began at 5:30 in the morning as we arrived at the Kansas Speedway before dawn. The music was playing, and there were volunteers who had formed a small casual tunnel that we walked through on our way to the semi trucks to dump our bags. We put our bags on our assigned semi & then went to the portalets to relieve our anxious bladders.

Right off the bat, Kata learned that you should leave your backpacks/fanny packs outside the portalet. She ended up dragging her mouthpiece to her camelpak in the urinal. GROSS!!! Nikki gave her some Purell, and she also doused it in water. Then she puckered up and sipped out of it. BRAVE!!! But, what's a girl to do? We hadn't even started our 60 miles, and the hydration would be crucial. Here's a picture of us in the early morning hours of Friday, waiting for the opening ceremonies to begin.
From left, Nikki, Kata & Laura

The opening ceremonies were cool, and there was a helicopter from the local news station that would swoop in and videotape some of the goings on. The ceremony ended with all the walkers funneling through a gated tunnel. It was pretty cool. Then, we were off! We walked outside the stadium area of the Speedway, then snaked back into the Speedway, where we did one of our first miles around the track led by the Pace Car. For those of you not familiar with racing (like me) I'll just explain that in Nascar races, the Pace Car leads all of the cars around the track to warm them up (at about 60 mph), then turns off and the competitive cars take off like a shot. So, the symbol here, was that the pace car led us around, then turned off at the end of the loop as we exited the Speedway and kicked off our 60 miles.

Us on our first mile, and the Pace Car.

So, our first day was pretty uneventful. We walked on a highway with a lane devoted just to us, we all three started wrapping our feet by lunch on day one, and we ended up at camp at Shawnee Mission Park. We camped on the parking field for Theater In the Park.

We did have a contingent of cheer support at the cheering station on Friday afternoon. Nikki's husband and kids came out, and so did Shelley & Tracy from my work.

I will say that each pit stop we came to, we (all the walkers) just gravitated right to the food tents and scooped up the energy snacks like the ravenous animals that we were. In fact, Kata kept stashing extra snacks in her backpack. We began teasing her about how she was provisioning like the woman in Terminator!

At one particular pit stop there was a man wearing a bra & ballet tutu, regaling us with chants as we waiting in line at the portalets. His chants were very much 'pro breast saving', and we had to get a picture with him. (Mom, I'm sorry you have to see this... hehe). One of our favorite chants was "Walk both Kansas Cities, to save your ti++ie$". You get the idea... He had a chant for every slang term a mammory could ever want to be called! But it was the lift our spirits needed toward the end of day 1.

The mobile showers were completely awesome (showering in a semi trailer with hot water is an unforgetable experience). The whole get-up should be featured on one of those "how'd they do that?" shows.

And at 8:45, we were snug in our tents in Tent City. 21.6 miles down.