Walk a Mile in Her Shoes

It seems like we have had all sorts of events lately. The latest one was a walk to help victims of domestic violence. It's called Walk a Mile in Her Shoes, and that's exactly what it is. A one-mile walk in high heels. It's two laps around Riverside Park in La Crosse. The even was very successful, raising over $16,000 for Gundersen Lutheran's Carilee Fund.

If you've ever tried to walk in high heels, you know how difficult it can be. Couple that with record high temperatures and the sun beating down on us and you've got a difficult task ahead. Like most of the other participants I got a pair of rental shoes from the event. The difficulty for me was not the high heel. It was the pointy toe section. I don't know how you ladies do it. While your toes are being squeezed together in the front of the shoe, gravity is pushing your foot forward making it even more uncomfortable. If I have it to do over again, I will get a shoe with a round or square front.

I also thought it would be nice to get some video of the event for work. I never thought it would be so difficult to keep up with the group or to walk backwards. Often when I video tape an event like this I like to get in front of the group and let them approach me so I can get shots of them walking by. I also end up walking backwards or sideways to keep up with them. I guess those are things that I usually take for granted.
Because of the hot temperatures they told us that we should consider only doing one lap, but about half of the guys kept going to make it the full mile. I compromised. I walked the first lap, grabbed my regular shoes, and ran around capturing footage for the second lap.

The DADs and a son

And boy was it hot. We had a small group called the Domestic Abuse Destroyers (DADs). Two of us work at Gundersen Lutheran so we walked with the Gundersen group. My son walked the entire thing with us. We didn't make him put on high heels. By the end we were all a sweaty mess, but it was all for a good cause.

And I didn't injure myself, which is a good thing a month out from the USATF National Championships.