I did it......13.1 and I am DONE!

Holy Crap! I flippin' completed a 1/2 marathon....and I didn't keel over trying! I wasn't carted off the course and I am still lived to tell the tale! I will write a lot more later when I have time to sit down and tell stories but I wanted to give you a little preview. I have a bunch of pics that I have to get from Mary, one of my walking peeps and my uncle. As soon as I have more pictures, I will post them. Here's a few for now....

For those of you who know my love for early mornings and my inability to get places on time.....I was up at 3am and down in the lobby at 3:45am as planned. CRAZY!

A pic that Ed took. He was in between miles 11 and 12.....


Almost there....approaching mile 12 and I just want to be done by this point!!

Woo Hoo! I ROCK! My time is about an hour less that that picture says. That time is how long the race had been going. I didn't get started until 8am because I was in a back corrall.....where all the cool people were!!

I will certainly post more but for now, here is a glimpse of the awesome weekend I had in Seattle!! Stay tuned.......GO TEAM!

Having a blast so far!

Hello! Just checking in before I get ready for my 3am wake up time! Crazy!

Thursday: Our flight was just perfect and they announced us on the intercom and explained what we are doing. We got a round of applause from the plane when they said that our group raised over $90K for Leukemia & Lymphoma. Pretty cool!

We got in and headed to the Expo to check in and get our bibs. I promptly donated back to the race in the amount of souveniers I bought....sue me, I am a first time 1/2 marathoner.....I deserve to spend a little on myself! We walked around the expo for about 2 hours and ended up with so much free junk it looked like we had been to the grocery store. Fun!







I am hanging with two captains from our East Valley Team because they are walkers as well so we have gotten to know each other over the course of our training. They are a blast...Mary and Peggy. They give me a hard time because I am "just a baby." I hope I am still going strong when I am their age! We walked around and found a neat Italian place to have dinner. We headed back to our hotel to hit the sack since we had a "fun run" with our teammates at 6:30am the next day.



Friday: We got up and did about a mile of walking before heading to Pikes Place to walk around and shop. We spend most of the day just hanging out around there. The guys at the Fish Market were scaring little kids with this Monk Fish by pulling on something to make it jump up. Poor kids were crying....sad but funny at the same time. I think they were more embarassed than scared because when the Fish guys came over and gave them a sticker, they were fine.







We headed back to our rooms because I had to let Ed in when he arrived and then we had to meet in the lobby to walk over to the Pasta Party. We ate some yummy pasta and heard from John Bingham, who is an awesome speaker! He is the national spokesperson for Team in Training and has a great story. Most runners know him as "The Penguin" as he advocates for those of us who waddle towards the finish line. We also heard from survivors of blood cancers that benefitted from the fundraising that we do during our training. It was amazing! More pics from that at a later date. Now, I am just getting ready to try and go to sleep so I can get up early and head to the lobby to catch the shuttle to the start of the race. I am sure you will be thinking of me when you are sound asleep.....or just getting to bed.....you know who you are!

When I sign on next, I will have 13.1 miles added to my shoes and quite an accomplishment achieved. Good stuff I say!



See you at the FINISH LINE!


GO TEAM!

Leavin' on a Jet Plane....

Well, it's that time....where did the last 5 months go? The big race is this weekend and I am so excited!! Not only that, we are staying in Washington to hang out with family so I will be gone for 10 whole days!! Boy do I need this vacation!




Here is a picture from one of the last practices of the season. These are my Team in Training coaches - Coach Hank and Coach Maria. They are AWESOME!! I am confident that part of the reason I will cross the finish line is because of their support and knowledge about training for endurance events! Hank just had knee surgery and you wouldn't even know it. Maria just took a little trip and competed in a small marathon in BOSTON......you might have heard of it. They come out week after week and help us along and are amazing! I will truly miss getting up every Saturday to walk with these fine people.....yes, you read correctly. I will miss getting up early.....but, once I take a little break I plan on going back to Freestone Park and walking on my own. I can't stop now or I won't afford to be able to eat Thai Elephant every week anymore!!



Yes, I look pretty rough in the early morning hours but I did it and that is what counts!


I must go finish packing but I will be updating throughout the weekend and my trip. Thanks to everyone for all their support! I couldn't have done it without any of you!

GO TEAM - EAST VALLEY ROCKS!

See you in SEATTLE!

The Very Sucessful Bake Sale!

So, since I bake so much, I had an idea to have a bake sale as a fundraiser for Team in Training/Leukemia & Lymphoma. I asked some of my baking friends to help along with my aunt and together, we made a crap load of yummy goodies and made a wad of cash! Here are some pics from the event:

Here is a before picture. I had so much stuff! I didn't even take a breath to take a picture of the tornado that went through my own tiny kitchen. I baked the Sunday before my Monday bake sale from 9am until about 1am. Of course there were breaks in between but for the most part, I was working on something having to do with the bake sale all day long. I wasn't the only one......a huge THANKS to Aunt Betty, Katie, Sheila, and Gen for baking for me! You guys are awesome!

Here's the after shot. While we had some stuff left over, it went throughout the day and then I passed along the kindness and donated my leftovers to my sister's friend, Jen, who is a youth minister and is taking some of her teens to Africa to build houses! She had a bake sale a few days after mine.

I have had this hanging outside my cube for awhile now. It generates some good conversation!

One of my first customers!

Me and my bake sale!


I made these cute things....just in case you can't tell, they say, "Seattle or Bust" and the other cupcakes have "13.1" on them. One person bought the whole box for her team. Awesome I say!

My donation can. Long live Don Francisco and his coffee cans! When all was said and done, I made a total of $425.63 on my bake sale. I could not have done this without the support of my peeps at work. I must say that my friends at work are awesome and have really shown their generous side during my adventure. Not only do they watch me limp around some days, listen to me talk about the stress of fundraising, and cheat on their new healthy lifestyles with baked goods, but they genuinely care about a good cause and are excited about my little adventure. Thanks for all your support.......you know who you are!

Next stop.....Joy and Hope's Excellent Garage Sale on June 6th! Stay tuned........

Finally....an update!

So, this whole process of fundraising and training for a 1/2 marathon is sucking the life out of me. On top of that, I am still teaching online classes. So, that is my story when you ask why my blog has not been updated. I am wrapping up my last online class that I will be teaching until after my trip, so hopefully, the updates will be more frequent. I have still be baking for my cause. Here are some examples of my latest work:

One of my co-workers, Angie, just graduated with her Ph.D. recently. We just did a last minute cake once we found out she was successful at defending her dissertation. It's the "Better than almost anything" cake with a chocolate diploma on top. Congrats Dr. Angie!

We had a bake off in our college at the suggestion of one of the other girls on the team because there are a few of us that bake. I got the award for the "best presntation" with my "Check Me Out" checkerboard cake. It turned out kinda funky but it was pretty tasty! Chocolate and Vanilla cake with a homemade raspberry jelly in the middle (thanks Aunt Betty) and my homemade cream cheese icing on top. Good stuff!!

One of the new schedulers got married and so my old manager asked for something for the teams to celebrate Priscilla's upcoming marriage with. Here are some cupcakes and a cake for the bride and groom. Congrats to Priscilla and Javier!

So, that led to another set of cupcakes and a cake for Gayle to take to a bridal shower:

Needless to say, my kitchen and stove hate me so I am giving them a rest.....well not really.

All of the proceeds from these scrumptious goodies went to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society to help me meet my fundraising goal. More to come on that adventure! Check out the Official Race website - http://www.rnrseattle.com/