The Gutsy Walk 2014

Every year there is an amazing event called the Gutsy Walk. The Gutsy Walk is your typical charity walk, pledges donate money and we walk a nice 5km walk. The Gutsy Walk focuses on Crohn's and Colitis, and obviously I just have to walk in this.

I'm actually really glad that there is a walk dedicated to these nasty diseases. I know when I first got sick a lot of my friends and family had no idea what colitis was and felt uncomfortable talking with me about it. It's a "yucky" disease and some people just feel uncomfortable talking about it. Regardless, we do deserve a walk.

So anyways, the first year I walked the Gutsy Walk I ended up walking by myself. I found out about the walk too late for any of my friends and family to make time to walk with me. I get it, it's early on a Sunday and some people like to sleep in and relax. Who in their right mind shows up at 10 in the morning to warm up for a 5km walk? Well my first year I did.

So before I talk about the walk I should just mention my horrible sense of direction. For those familiar with Hamilton you'll understand how crazy I am, for those not familiar with Hamilton, you're probably just as great as getting around as I was.

I had taken a bus down to the new MacNab terminal and figured I would just take the Bayfront bus to Bayfront Park. You'd think that the bus would go relatively close to the park, right? 

Nope, it goes down to Pier 8. Pier 8 is a nice little place. It has William's Cafe, Scoops (best ice cream in the world), roller skate or ice skate rentals (depending on the season), a grill, boat tours, and some nice fishing spots. It's actually a great place to go and hang out with friends or for family fun. It's great except it is not Bayfront Park. 

I knew enough about Hamilton that Bayfront Park is near Pier 4 and I asked someone for directions. Great idea if the person knew directions. They totally pointed me in the wrong direction and I ended up walking past the old Lakeport factory to some indoor skating area before I realized how lost I was. 

So here I was freaking out. I knew the event started officially at 11 and it was already 10! I was going to be late if I didn't figure out where the hell I was going soon (and if you don't know me, I freak out about being punctual).

So finally I find a sign at a public park, the kind with the map of local parks in the area. I had a general direction of where I was going and where I should be going. FINALLY!

So after knowing where I had to go, I book it over to Bayfront Park. On the way I pass a few other events, such as the Juvenile Diabetes Walk, and a few others that I can't quite recall. I knew I was on the right track and I could see some red and white signs that belong to the Gutsy Walk. After all the chaos of my horrible directional skills I was there. I had made it to the Gutsy Walk in time to do the walk. 

So when I got the the registration place I was shocked to see how the Gutsy Walk was laid out. It was a really nice set up. They had tents with snacks and drinks that you could eat before the walk or after, and after the walk they had pizza coming after. I was really impressed. I thought that we would just walk and stuff, that there would be some events after. But food? Woah man. That is just amazing. I was used to the Terry Fox Run (or walk with my cardio skills) and a Freezie at the end of the day. 

So after a very pumped up warm up we began the walk. It was gorgeous out that day and the walk was along the Harbour Front Trail, so that was just a beautiful walk. It was actually a walk that my family and I had done for fun. We are very outdoorsy people. In fact, this walk was very relaxing and something I could see myself doing on a regular basis.

Anyways, while I was on the walk an older gentleman started talking to me. He was doing the Juvenile Diabetes Walk that I mentioned earlier and was curious about what walk I was doing. I told him about the Gutsy Walk and a bit about Crohn's and Colitis. It turns out that a friend of his son's was really sick with Crohn's. The man was really surprised that there was a walk for the disease that struck him so close to home. It was then I realized that a lot of people are afraid to talk about things that involve the grosser workings of the human body.

Anyways, I finished the walk in a relatively fast time. My dad had told me walking 5km would take a few hours to do. It took me about an hour to finish, and I'm a slow walker. After the walk I was drawn to a couple white food tents by the smell of delicious pizza. This was before I had discovered Pizza Pizza's gluten free delight and was used to Domino's bland options. I had asked if they had any gluten free but I guess a lot of other people there were gluten free as they had run out fairly quickly. No worries, I ate a bunch of bananas. Probably better considering the fact I walked back to the terminal after the walk. 

Yeah, I must be a masochist. After my earlier mishap with directions and a 5km walk I decided it would be a good idea to walk about 3km to the terminal. Wow. This was definitely a leg day.