The Ladies Circle of Great Britain & Ireland - Reading Circle do the Moonwalk

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Reading Circle do the Moonwalk

Contributed by Kate Jones
Sat, 30/05/09
Reading Circle do the Moonwalk I could start by saying that the day dawned bright and early but it didn’t start like that. It did however, start way too early for both of us who had been planning on sleeping as long as possible to recharge the batteries for later that day. We met at Reading train station early evening already dressed in our Moonwalk t-shirts and baseball caps and immediately spotted other groups wearing the tell tale pink. After queuing for train tickets we relaxed as we sped towards Paddington and then Hyde Corner. Little did we know that we had just experienced the first of many queues that evening. When we arrived at Hyde Park we joined everyone else as they made their way to the Playtex Village. We queued to enter, queued for food and queued to dispose of our bags; I now understand why we were asked to get there so early. While waiting to start the walk we drew on our mouse nose and whiskers and made essential last minute changes to our supplies, like deciding which pocket was best to store the chocolate. It was a wonderful atmosphere to see so many women and a few token men in the tent in their colourful costumes all waiting for the off. Most groups were dressed in their ‘group colours’ and it made me think of the fancy dress nights in Conference but obviously with far less drinks. Part of the final preparations involved going to the toilet and we took one look at the very very long queue and decided to try the she-wee-urinal. Suffice to say that it was an experience. I’ll leave the details for another occasion. Having warmed up and donned in our very attractive but warm see-through plastic macs, we waited for the final countdown, and at a quarter to midnight we were off. The adrenalin was pumping and it was great to join in with the other thousands of walkers as we put our best foot forward. As we walked through central London in the early hours of the morning it was wonderful to see everyone’s reaction to us – support came in the form of cheers and clapping, horns were hooted and several were just plain ‘gob-smacked’. I was surprised to see there were very few drunken males around and those we met were silenced by the size and impact our ‘group’ created. There were after all 18,000 of us dressed either in our bras or with our bras on top of our t-shirts. We were also grateful for the support our friends gave us via phone calls and text messages. We walked past too many monuments to list here but the memorable ones were the London Eye all lit up and still working well past midnight, St Paul’s Cathedral and Big Ben as well as the mile markers that to us were important monuments. Other important ‘monuments’ were bushes and trees. We waited until we were at 12 miles before resorting to food and then it was a very welcome Babybel (thank you Julie) but by 13 miles we were reduced to I spy (not my strong point). A quarter of an orange brought an unexpected pleasure when handed out by the organisers as we walked along the Thames. We did however save up our first chocolate for the 20-mile marker. By that point it was feeling like a long hard trudge. We were not considering pulling out but we were dragging our feet and counting the hours. As runners we acknowledged that walking wasn’t just a stroll in the park. We enjoyed the morning sunrise and saw more traffic appearing on the streets and still the Walk the Walk volunteers were there to cheer us on and make sure we crossed the roads safely – Thank you. Finally we were at mile 24 and walking down the Mall. We were planning what we wanted for breakfast, looking forward to the whisky that was in my rucksack at the end, trying to decide if we were going to crash out immediately we got home or have a shower before crashing and updating Sally on our progress every few steps! The last half mile seemed to go on forever but we were there finally, the ‘mices’ from Reading. We crossed the line together, hand in hand and smiling before posing for a photo then collecting our medal and bags. Fortunately the rain held off until 10 minutes after we had finished and it was the incentive we needed to head off in our warm clothes for breakfast. The walk to breakfast seemed to take forever but it was worth it. From there it was tube and train back to Reading from Paddington, we even managed a gentle jog for the train rather than wait another 30 minutes for the next one! If you’re thinking of doing similar I would certainly recommend it – it’s Fun, Friendship and Fundraising all at the same time. Kate and Julie – Reading LC
Last Updated ( Sat, 30/05/09 )