I walked 39.3 miles with the Affiliate Marketers Give Back team in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in New York City this past weekend.
Affiliate Marketers Give Back raised and donated $86,688.36, and this support will fund research to find a cure or prevention, as well as programs that enable all patients to access quality care. A key priority is the medically underserved, including low-income, elderly, and minority individuals.
The first day was Saturday, October 20, and we got together before sunrise on the west side of Manhattan.
The early start kicked off a marathon walk (literally!) of 26.2 miles. It was a really neat way to see New York.
We were a team of 12, but we broke up into smaller groups during the walk. I spent the majority of the walk with Tricia Meyer and Vanessa Branco.
There was a funny moment on the first day when we came across some portable toilets that touted top fundraisers, and I had one there in my name.
We finished the first day of walking on Randall’s Island at dusk, and I was very happy to make it the whole way without any blisters. But everything else was hurting.
The second day, Sunday, October 21, started before sunrise with a breakfast in the dark morning. We loaded up on some carbs and protein before setting out for the remaining 13.1 miles.
By lunchtime, we all hit the medical tent to get our feet fixed up. My feet started breaking down by that point, and the first aid enabled me to finish up the walk.
During the second day, we took a break to help cheer on other walkers.
Then it was on to the final stretch of the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. Those last miles of the 39.3 total were definitely the toughest, but it made it all easier to see so many breast cancer survivors and women currently fighting the disease right there with us.
Who could complain about some sore feet with those courageous souls among us?
In the early afternoon of the second day, we hit the finish line, and that was such a satisfying and emotional moment. All of the training and fundraising and everything lead up to that happy moment at the end.
While we waiting for everybody else to finish up and for the closing ceremonies to start, we medicated our feet a bit.
And I stepped back over to get a shot of my hat at the finish line. It was a hat my mother-in-law, Maria Sanchez, gave me a few years before breast cancer stole her away. I wore it for the whole walk to keep me with her as I walked in her memory.
In the end, the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in NYC raised $8.3 million dollars, and I was proud to play a role in that.
Thank you so much to everybody who supported me through donations, positive thoughts, texts, etc. Also, I’d like to give a big thank you to the Affiliate Marketers Give Back team, as we all joined together to be In It to End It.
It was a lot of fun to spend all that time getting to know Tricia and Vanessa better.
And a big thanks to Avon and all of the volunteers who made this all happen. What a giant undertaking, and it ran so well, and they took such great care of us.
Finally, the biggest thanks to Missy Ward for heading up Affiliate Marketers Give Back, organizing all of the stuff around the walk, raising crazy hundreds of thousands of dollars in these walks for many years running, and just generally being the best business partner ever.
What an inspiring, humbling, wonderful, emotional, and transformative weekend.
All money raised by the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer is managed by the Avon Foundation for Women, a 501(C)(3) public charity that funds a comprehensive network of programs and services dedicated to serving breast cancer patients and their families through five areas of the breast cancer cause: awareness and education, screening and diagnosis, access to treatment, support services, and scientific research.