Pat's Run

I had signed John, Nick, and I up for Pat's Run not too long ago. It's 4.2 mile run in honor of Pat Tillman. The race finishes at the 42 yard line of Sun Devil's Stadium. This was the weekend after the Boston Marathon and they stepped up security and while I saw a lot of security we didn't encounter any issues. There was something like 28k people running the run which is actually more than the Boston Marathon.

We were on a team with some people at work and someone had told us to put our finish time at 30 min (ha ha, yeah right) but they did that so we could get an earlier corral. Somehow that put us in corral 3. That is where the good of this story ends. We didn't really know when to leave to get down there, etc. So at about 6 am on Saturday we were trying to get ready and all we had in our house was 1 banana that John and I split (this will come into play later). We headed down there and parking was crazy

 

 

We ended up parking at Tempe Marketplace and walking to the start (we clocked it on the way back and it's about 2 miles). Well, I had to go to the bathroom at this point but we were hurrying to the start line and while I was trying to keep up with John my calves cramped up. We got up to the start line and they were already on corral 9. So we didn't have time to find a bathroom and we just got in line and started running.

I would say that the first 2 miles or so went pretty well. Then my foot went numb. I had one leg wrapped because of shin splints and then a compression sleeve on the other. So we had to stop and unwrap my leg.

Shortly after this picture was taken I really started to feel the lack of food. I started to just get angry. Right after you go under the 202 there is a Denny's and I thought it smelled awful and wanted to throw up and I was just getting really hot and tired.

So we continue on and my Endomondo tells me we are at 4 miles as we're turning into the stadium parking lot so I tell myself I can handle another 3 minutes and I should be done. Well, they just sit there and wind you through the parking lot!! I knew it'd been further than .2 miles and I had to pee, I was hungry, I was hot, I was getting annoyed with the people around me and all the people who were already finished. I was ready to just quit. I was done. Nick got me to the finish line where I promptly demanded a bathroom that I almost passed out in. While I was doing that, Nick got this picture.

And remember.... we then had another 2 mile walk BACK to the car. So... it was a good run, but there were a lot of things to learn from it. We'll see if we do it again or not.

From there we went to grab some breakfast at Crackers and then home to shower and take naps! We did get to do this though:

And I had this to reward me at work:

So that is done. We did 100 miles before the cruise. Honestly, we both could have probably had it done a few weeks ago but we decided to finish it together at Pat's Run. So now that goal is reached you may ask what is my motivation now?? How about this?

A few fun side notes is that I learned how to do this:

And I now have my own currency:

Best weekend ever?

For Christmas I had decided to get Brooklynn and I tickets to Beauty and the Beast. Well, the 13th was the day! I had double booked my day so it was busy; but that also made it one of the best days!

Nick had told me that Brooklynn had been counting down and was very excited. I knew she was getting all dressed up so I figured I better put some effort into it.

Our first stop was lunch. We went to Gordon Biersch down by the theater. I thought it was a good spot because that location is pretty neat being upstairs in downtown Tempe. She did really well during lunch; ate well, behaved well, etc. I told her we were making a surprise stop after lunch and that we were going to go potty before leaving since the theater is crowded. In the bathroom she told me she needed to reapply her lipstick. The other lady in the bathroom found this entertaining. She would have reapplied her blush as well, but her mom wouldn't let her bring it.

This was reapplying our lipstick

From there we went to the Candy Addict. It's a candy store with a sorts of candy. She wanted everything Hello Kitty, noisy, and messy. We stocked up on some treats and headed to Gammage. At Gammage we went and looked at the souvenirs. We narrowed down the list from purse, shirt, crown, snow globe, and doll to just shirt and crown. Add a few drinks and a cupcake and we were set!

We had some time to kill so we went out on the patio where I was hoping she would get out all her excess energy.

We were wandering around in the bathroom (can you tell I was hoping we wouldn't have to crawl over a bunch of people in the middle of the play for a bathroom break) and I thought this would be a cute picture.

She did ok during the play. There are a few parts where it's a little slow for kids and it is a 2 1/2 hour play. I'd say she made it about 45 min into the first act before she got restless. During the intermission I told her she couldn't sit in her chair. So she walked stairs.

The second act is shorter and she did pretty good during it. She got restless quick but she was saying she was tired so I put her on my lap and we did good the rest of the time. I think her favorite parts were probably "Be Our Guest", the whole ballroom scene with the gold dress, and the end where the beast turns back into a prince. That's my guess but that is where she seemed to be really interested.

She tried to hit me up for ice cream on the way home, but I had to hurry because we had another engagement for that evening!

I had been waiting for this artist to come to Phoenix for a while. In December he announced a tour and Phoenix was his last stop! He played at the Hard Rock in downtown Phoenix. I'd never been there and it's a small venue. He is Marcus Foster. Check out his stuff on iTunes, AWESOME!

So the four of us (John and I, Stephanie, and Bart) headed down there. We were looking for dinner first and thankfully we decided to just eat at Hard Rock. There were 3 acts; Bad Lucy, Ruston Kelly, and Marcus. I liked all of them. Ruston was amazing. We all had a good time. It was a long day and a late night, but SO, SO fun.

Bad Lucy

Ruston Kelly

 Here is a video; it isn't actually anything to see, so maybe I should call it audio of Ruston.

Stephanie and I both really liked Ruston.

This is Marcus

Us with Ruston

I loved every minute of it!!!

PCH

A last minute thing came up on the 9th and I conned Nick into joining me. There was only one real downfall. We had to get up at 2:30 in the morning. We were able to volunteer for the ABC telethon for Phoenix Children's Hospital. Our shifts were 4:15-10:15. The good thing was that when we were done we got to go home for they day! It was interesting to sort of see all the behind the camera stuff for the news. Also, because it was so early, etc. but they want to make it look like calls are pouring in and we are busy we were "acting" alot and making our phones ring and pretending to answer them. I didn't find a clip where Nick and I were surprisingly interviewed....needless to say we were not expecting it.

You can sort of see the beauty queen? More on that....

What we were supposed to be doing...

What we did more

Big Red made a generous donation

Someone brought in IHOP. Nick and I were pretty sure these were the beauty queen's breakfasts.

One of the camera guys with sweet chops!

I've done this once before and I have loved it both times. I feel like it's such a worthwhile cause.

Trying

I am trying to keep up on my blog because I know if I don't things are going to get backed up quickly. So, here goes. First, this is random, but if I put it here then I will know where to find it again!

I made this the other day and I thought it was yummy! Paired with some brown rice :-)

Tour de Tempe

To cap off our crazy week we had the Tour de Tempe ride Sunday morning. We got out there early to register and get all our free stuff! Coffee, tea, banana, bagel, muffins!!!

I will say that this is a fun ride, but for some reason the fact that they advertised it as a 10 mile ride was perfectly fine with me. There ended up being 15 of us in our little group.

I know some of these people are in our group but I only recognize Mikel in the pink stripe on the left

Stephanie, John, and Brendon getting ready to ride

Ok, here you have Stephanie, Lynn, Mikel, Bart, and Lance

I had my Endomondo going but most the time when it talks to me I wouldn't hear it in time or didn't hear it at all. I started to feel like we were going further than 10 miles though.

This was our own little pit stop. You have Jane, Bart, Lynn, the two girls I don't know (Teri's peeps), Dave, Daphne, Brendon, Monica, and Lance

Got some pictures in. John, Mikel, Steph, Teri, and Bart

This was as we rode through the ASU campus. I also want to say that someone didn't plan this well. There was the festival of the arts going on down on Mill plus a triathlon on Tempe Town Lakes which we rode through all of them. I had to get a picture of this tree though because I thought it was so pretty.

I think Mikel was tired of riding too. This was on the way back and she sort of just took off!

So it ended up that the ride was more like 14 miles. My butt hurt and still does. However, when we got back by the car we saw this!

It's sort of hard to see, but it's actual LARPing!!! They were serious about it too. I had a good laugh over it. This was all that came to mind:

Alissa get your gun!

This past week was our gun safety class. So Wednesday and Thursday night I went to John's work for the class. There were about 24 of us. The bosses were really nice and brought in dinner for us and everything.

Saturday was our range time. We were split into two groups. He had us do several different exercises. We did a seated round, standing, one armed, timed, and so on. This was all with a .22 and went pretty well. Then we got into some 'races' with balloons. Then we had a sort of free for all with a variety of guns. Again we were provided with some chips, sandwiches, and cookies.

Teresa and Donna

John by one of his targets

Gene, Ken, and Donna checking out their handiwork

Adding new targets

Donna loading her magazine

One of me!

This was my untimed target

I love that revolver!

Some of the girls with their targets!

This video was really quick because I only got the last little bit on video. Gene and Ken had gotten new guns. I can't remember what they were but they blow your socks off a little when you fire it.

To finish out our Saturday we went out to Maricopa since John's parents were getting ready to head to Idaho. We went out to the casino for the seafood buffet. It's not cheap but we ended up getting a steal! If you sign up for their players card you get a free buffet, $10 per person, and we got a 12 pack of soda! So we had quite the haul.

Practice makes perfect?

So I've had a few ongoing things in my blog lately. This post is a quick update on a few of those items and maybe a few new ones. First to book end this post:

My ongoing run 100 miles before the cruise challenge. I'm not sure what day this was taken but I was pretty excited to be getting so close to the finish (I think the finish is going to be awesome. Stay tuned about another 12 days...). As you can see, there was some sabotage at work and my countdown.

Next, is that somewhere along the way I decided to want to shoot a gun, or carry a gun, or something. So we had gone that one time in February. Well....John's bosses decided they wanted to offer a gun safety course to employees and spouses. So we signed up! But once I realized there was a practical test, I thought I needed more practice. So the Saturday before Easter we went shooting that morning with Jim.

Not too bad for my second time!

We were also using Easter weekend to celebrate Bart's birthday. He wasn't cooperating and said he wanted a lazy boy and a movie. So we interpreted that to a trip to Ipic!! We went and saw The Host. I haven't read the book and I thought the movie was pretty good! But because we went so early we got to see this sunset when we left.

We also went to dinner at Portillo's. That might be somewhere we have to try again.

Nick posted a picture of Cailee from Easter and I thought it looked similar to a picture of me from back in the day. So I put the two together to see.

Last, I call this progress :-)