We Walked 17 Miles For Fun

Yesterday, we walked 17 miles just because we wanted to. It was a planned event with family and I don’t even think it was Hungry or my idea to start in the first place. Originally, it was for training purposes for my basically sister-in-law to get ready for a marathon walk, but we ended up just doing it after the event, still. It was a walk across Los Angeles. We started in Los Feliz and ended in Santa Monica. It was a journey and an adventure. We went through so many different parts of the city, experienced so many different emotions, and somehow made it until the very end. I won’t lie to you, sometimes we wanted to quit, but luckily we had a strong group, and made it to the very end. My feet are sore as I write this, but I’m very proud of our group! We all had different fitness levels, different workout regimens, and were different ages–but we completed the journey and had fun doing it!

We took a picture at each mile and tried to capture whatever part of the city we were in. We helped up an old lady who had fallen and couldn’t get up. We blasted music and sometimes danced our way to the next mile. We played games to distract ourselves from the pain (especially the end half). We people-watched and window shopped. We found a yummy new place for lunch and stopped in various places along the way. We bickered and bantered. We joked and laughed a lot. We all bonded and became closer throughout the whole journey. And we made it up the very last hill!

We were lucky to start and end in very good circumstances. My two cousins, Tiffany (owner of the incredible Birch Paper Goods) and Whitney, served us an incredible and stout breakfast with breakfast meats, pancakes, croissants, bagels, fruit, tea, and more. We were full of energy when we set off on our journey thanks to them. And, when we hobbled to our finish line (everything hurt by this point), we were greeted by my parents who had a wonderful spread of refreshments and water to drink AND hot water to soak our feet in. And, eventually pizza happened. It was such a great day.

What’s the moral of this story? I’m not sure if it really has one, but here are some:

Set ambitious yet achievable goals and then go do them. Were we nervous about doing this walk? Yeah, kinda. I don’t think any of us prepped for it. We set the date in stone and didn’t let each other back down from it. Once we struggled through the pain, we were so happy and proud of ourselves for the achievement. Physical and emotional journey!
Go on adventures with your family. Your family could mean your parents and siblings. It could mean you and your dog. It could mean you and your partner. Or for us, it meant your partner, cousins, and sister-in-law. It was a great bonding experience full of laughs, games, and arguments. Your adventure could look at lot different from ours, but I highly recommend taking something of an adventure, whatever it may be. It was a blast.

Below, you’ll see all the photos from Mile 1 to Mile 17 and fun stuff in between. I hope you venture out to do something like this because walking 17 miles will certainly keep you hungry and fit!