HSU Insider

HSU Profs Walking the Walk

• By Janlyn Echols Thaxton
• Posted August 6, 2009 4:21 PM
• 0 Comments

And it Ain't for Sissies...

We've avoided skunks, coyotes, bobcats, oh yeah...and deer," says Dr. Janelle O'Connell in a matter-of-fact voice. At least four mornings per week, the professor of physical therapy and Spanish professor Dr. Teresia Taylor leave their houses long before the sun comes up to hike. Sometimes they go together and sometimes they go solo.
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Both are training for a three-day, 60-mile walk. That's right, 60 miles! They must also raise $2,300 each by September 1.

This summer, before each instructor goes to work, they walk a minimum of eight miles. On Saturdays, they have worked their way up to a 17-mile walk with a 10-minute break.

The reason this pair of PhDs is seemingly adopting a motto associated with postal carriers ("Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night...") is because of a 27-year-old grassroots effort that has been raising money for research, education, and quality care for breast cancer.

This November, Taylor and O'Connell will be part of the Breast Cancer 3-Day walk in Dallas, with the money they raise going to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure National Philanthropic Trust project. The 3-Day walk is one of 15 throughout the U.S. this year being conducted by the foundation.

"Eight miles is about 2½ hours," says Taylor with a bit of a revelational kind of snort. "When I started this, my longest walk was just four miles, and I was absolutely worn out and chaffed in places you don't want to hear about. I didn't know I needed anything besides a good pair of tennis shoes. I've never been an athlete of any kind. There are so many things I've had to learn."

Taylor continued, building the picture of a neophyte athlete-in-training, "After the first time I walked, I went and had a whole plate of pancakes." O'Connell, who is sitting in a corner chair in Taylor's office in Abilene Hall, laughs and says, "The pancakes would have been better to eat the night before the walk." Taylor replies, "See, Janelle knows these kinds of things; she's always been athletic."

Taylor says she is doing this because she had breast cancer in 1995. "I am fortunate that the surgeries and medicines are working for me. I believe that I would not be here if it weren't for the progress that has been made in breast cancer research up to this point. Someone, somewhere raised the money for that! That's why I'm doing this."

O'Connell's story is just as compelling. "There are way too many people I know who have had breast cancer. I will have all of their names somewhere on my shirt and hat during the three days of the walk," says O'Connell.

"One of my former students was diagnosed with breast cancer just after she graduated." O'Connell continues, "The wife of the man who hired me has been fighting breast cancer for 18 years." O'Connell says her friend Sharon Gould's name will be among the 20 or so she is wearing during the 3-day walk. In fact, she says, "If anyone wants me to add a name and walk on their behalf also, I will do that."

Stopping to calculate, O'Connell believes they have walked close to 400 miles since they started training in April. "This whole idea started as just a whim, but it has evolved into something much bigger," says Taylor. "I fight boredom, discipline, and illness, but there is a depth of commitment we both have to this. We couldn't do this without each other, though." O'Connell couldn't agree with that any more. "The fact that we are doing this together makes all the difference," she says.

O'Connell has raised all of her required $2,300. "I had two very large unsolicited donations that helped tremendously," she says wiping her forehead in relief. Taylor's website indicates that to reach her commitment, she still needs about $500. She has until the end of August to fulfill the financial obligation.

Taylor has already had one garage sale to help raise the funds. She also has had many very nice donations, which are listed on the website at www.The3Day.org

"This has become for me a spiritual pilgrimage in honor of my many friends and relatives who have NOT survived cancer as well as the next generation of women," says Taylor in a testimonial fundraising letter. "Cancer is no fun. My hope is that these funds will contribute toward making the disease a thing of the past."

When school starts, each has an 8 a.m. class. Taylor says they will have to walk more than just once a day, or do it more than four times per week since their time gets shorter, and the walks keep getting longer. The profs also do cross-training, swimming is a favorite, on the days they are not walking. So far they are still managing to take Sundays off.

As for the bobcats, coyote, deer, and skunks the two have encountered, they say the animals mainly just want to get out of their way. Little wonder since, when they walk together, one bops along wearing a headlight while the other wears a tail light in the dark of the morning.

They say one of their most memorable early-morning walks was not the wildlife but dodging an early morning lightening storm. "We took a break, walked into a McDonald's, and discovered we couldn't even afford a cup of coffee because neither of us had brought money," says Taylor.

Here's the kicker, though. Taylor, a spunky 65-years-old redhead, sometimes questions her own ability to complete the long walks. In those cases, O'Connell says her husband, Dennis, likes to ask the rhetorical question, "How many 65-year-old women do you know who have walked 15 miles today?"

With all of the donations from many friends and colleagues, she has raised $2,800.