My fab weekend!!!!!!!

Started with Saturday, wow what a great day!! I got up at 5:00 and headed out to ASU to run Pat's Run.You might have seen the thread on Tracker, it was in honor of Pat Tillman. His story is so incredible. He was an ASU alumni and a AZ Cardinals Football player who after 9/11 gave up his lucrative contract to join the Army and fight in Iraq. He was killed in action by friendly fire. It is such a chilling story. He was a very inspiring guy and a real competitor who did everything 110%. Anyway it was a 4.2 mile run around Tempe town lake and into the stadium, it finished on the 50 yard line. I met up with Dana and Maricar and we all ran it, but we got separated. There were 8,000+ runners!!! By some miracle we all found each other after it was over. All along the way they had big banners with some of his quotes, a big picture of his face, boy you see that stuff and it just realy keeps you pumped up. Toward the end I was getting tired but then there were people lined up cheering us on, one guy really stood out to me, he was in a wheelchair, obviously crippled, wearing a Cardinals Jersey and cheering everybody on. I just about started crying, thinking, This guy probably knew Tillman, and he'd be running this for sure if he could, boy that got me. and then coming up the tunnel into the stadium, it was pretty emotional. A lot of people were standing there (mainly ASU footbal players) holding out there hands to slap as you run to the finish line. The stadium was about half full about that time of people watching and cheering. It was a great moment. I fely so happy that I ran the whole thing at a good pace and finished. My time on the display was 42:12, I think my chip time will be around 38-40 min., I haven't checked it yet. It was so much fun and very inspirational.

On to Awesome experience #2!!! After the race we went to Scottsdale and watched BFL champ Ken Young do a bike race. We were all so tired and sweaty, but it was our only chance. We got there for the end and cheered him on a little, then got to hang out and chat for a while. He was so nice and complimentary. I had heard he was a machine, um, oh YEAH! He's been training hard all week and racing his bike (this is like Lance Armstrong short-track stuff) and training and racing with retired pros of many different sports, not just bike. He said they were amazing. But he was racing against some real retired big shots. (Seriously, this is Kens first "season", he just "picked it up", and he's placing 3rd, 1st, 2nd, HELLO!!!!!!) He is a fitness ANIMAL. He had raced (i'm guessing like 30 mile races, all out)at 7:15 that morning, then we caught the end of the 11 am race, but he was wondering if they'd let him do the 5 pm race, just for fun, to see where he's place. His physique is in-freaking SANE, he really IS a machine. Yet he was so gracious about taking pics, and so complimentary to ME, the nerd royale! He said I look great for having 5 kids. And Danas camera is really slow to snap the pics, and he's like "hey, take your time! LOL" while he's got his arms around Maricar and me. LOL It was cute. We talked about the cruise, it was cool and I really wasn't nervous after the first couple minutes, because he was just so nice. He's was like "hey are you gonna go get pizza now after your race?, you gotta reward yourself" it was funny. It makes me SO SO SO excited to meet more champs and awesome BFL peeps on the cruise. AHHHHHHHH!

So yes, we did go get pizza!!! LOL








One thing about these pics......I don't know WHAT is up but I look HORRIBLE! Nice unshapen sausage arms :( Mark pulled them up and knew I would not like them. And Cade saw them and said "woah, mom.....you look big in those pictures. Like REALLY big. Way bigger than in real life." Gotta love kids. At least he threw that last part in. but seriously. YIKES.


I'll have to blog about Easter later, this is turning into a novel. :D