My Next Adventure....

So, about a week after I returned from Las Vegas, I attended Kick Off for the Summer Season of Team in Training.......YES, I am training to complete another half marathon!

I have signed on with TNT again but this time, I am the Mission Captain for the East Valley Marathon Team.  My job is to help make sure everyone knows why we were all coming together to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.  This organization is awesome and I love being a part of it!  One of my duties is to make a Mission Board to help track our fundraising and to help keep us all aware of the people we are walking in Memory of or in Support of this season.  I love my board!  I will post pictures later....but if you know me, I am into scrapbooking, so it looks pretty sweet!!

Our Summer Season consists of the Rock n' Roll San Diego and Seattle events.  I am so sad that I cannot go to Seattle again but UOPX Graduation is that weekend and because I am staff in the College of Social Sciences as well as faculty, I have to be there for the whole weekend.  The cool thing is that I will be going to San Diego and they have designed a new course and all the proceeds from the entire event go to Leukemia & Lymphoma, which is AMAZING!

So, stay tuned for updates on my training and how I am helping to motivate others.  So......I am still raising money as well so please visit my fundraising website and help me get to the finish line in San Diego in memory of my Grandma!

http://pages.teamintraining.org/dm/rnr10/jgaeraths

Thanks in advance for your support!!

Go TEAM!!

January 26 - January 31st - Miss America in Las Vegas!

So, the next week after PF Chang's, I headed to Vegas to cheer on my friend, Savanna, in her quest for the Miss America crown.  Yes, I am a supporter of the Miss Arizona Scholarship program and have been volunteering at a local preliminary, Miss Twirling Athlete, for over 10 years now.  My twirling coach, Becky Hewitt, is the Executive Director and I have been helping her with her competitions since I returned from Flagstaff in 1998.  Twirling was a huge part of my life for so long and I have lifelong friends as a result, so I give back.  Did I compete in pageants....no, never did but I certainly support these girls earning money to further their education!  We have had two of our twirlers make it to the Miss America stage and I wasn't able to go in 2004 in Atlantic City because I had just been hired at UOPX.  Now, it was closer and I had the opportunity to go.  I figured if I was going to go, I needed to do it all, so I flew out Tuesday.  Ed drove up Wednesday and we drove back Sunday.  Ed even went to the final night so he can say he has been to Miss America.

Yes, that is a very long time to be in Vegas and I don't think I will be doing it again for awhile.  It was a neat experience, to see how the big pageant works and to support Savanna every night of the preliminaries.  On Tuesday night, Savanna performed her talent and she rocked the Miss America stage!  On Wednesday night, she answered her On Stage Question with poise and confidence!  On Thursday night, she looked amazing in her swim wear and stunning in her Evening Gown!  She looked awesome and represented Arizona with class and grace and I am very proud of her accomplishments and all she has done to promote higher education, which is her platform.

Originally, Ed wasn't supposed to be driving up until Thursday, but since he is not employed at this time, he came up earlier.  So, he didn't have tickets to the preliminary nights of competition.  I spent the majority of the week with the Niemiec's, a family I know through twirling.  Katelyn is our Miss Arizona's Outstanding Teen, which is the teen pageant to Miss America.  Katelyn is also a twirler and represented Az in Orlando this past summer and has done amazing as well.  Her and her mom and grandma were staying at the Stratosphere where we were, so I hitched a ride with them to the prelims.  I have known them for awhile now but never spent more than a day or so with them for baton competitions.  I had so much fun hanging out with them during the week and Katelyn and I had some fun adventures.  I am scared that her mom will never leave her alone with me again......HA!  Just kidding.  We just had a lot of fun and I was happy to have that time to get to know her a little better.

My buddy for the week....she will never be the same!  :o)

So, here are some pictures that I took over the span of the week.

January 17, 2010 - PF Chang's Rock n' Roll Half Marathon

Hello!  Here is my feeble attempt at keeping up with my blog.  Not too long after our Holland adventures, I completed my 2nd half marathon here in Phoenix.  I walked the PF Chang's half marathon with Team UOPX.  My work, University of Phoenix, joined the Get Fit challenge and paid for our entry into the race.  How can you pass up a free race entry, right?  Let me remind you that I didn't train for this race as consistently as I did for Seattle.  The cool thing is that my feet are fixed (Thanks Dr. Carson Robertson and his staff at Alpha Chiropractic), so it should be a different experience.  I had done a few 5K's and some walking on my own in addition to my weekly visits to Joan, my personal trainer at the YMCA but no weekly walks on the canal.

We hopped on the light rail during our lunch hour (we have a stop right in front of our building) and headed to the Expo in downtown Phoenix.  We got our race bibs, shirts, and went shopping for souvenirs.  We walked around and got our free stuff.  Here are some pics from our lunch time adventure:

My favorite inspirational runner...John Bingham, the Penguin.

Angie and Sione Fa from the Biggest Loser.  She's a fan of the show and was excited to meet him!

Angie and I went to the Pasta Dinner that UOPX had for all the participants the night before.  My favorite speaker that night was Rob Wiley.  He's training to qualify for the 2012 Olympic Trials and was a great motivational speaker!  We headed home to get some rest before race day!

So, race day came and we were off.  My race buddies, Angie and Gen, met up and carpooled to a light rail park and ride and took the light rail to the finish line. See, I read the fine print that stated that the closest light rail stop to the Start line was a mile away.  No thanks!  We wanted to save the feet for the important 13.1 of the day.  So, we caught the shuttle at the end that took us to the Start of the race.

Here we are.....in our hi-liter yellow shirts.  Yes, this was the team shirt that we were given by UOPX to wear on race day.  I believe that at one point while we were waiting to start that Gen told me that looking at my shirt made her eyes hurt.  We had a good laugh when we picked them up on the Thursday before the race.  I called it the "remember me because I am important information" shirt.  That is why you hi-lite stuff, right?  Anyway....we don't have to worry about anyone not being able to see us, right?

We hung out....visited the lovely port-a-potties a few times and the headed to our Corral.

I was in Corral 25 of 27 I think.  Here is our view while waiting to start:

The girls were ahead of me but came back and started with me so we could start together.  It's a good thing because they would have never experienced the time of their life at the back of the line!  By the time we got to the start of the race, this is what we saw behind us:

We were laughing so hard at the idea of the tearing down of the start area before we even started.  I was determined not to be the last person to finish this race...even if I was one of the last to start!

  Almost to the Start Line!!

 Mayor Phil Gordon and Senator John McCain helped to start the race.  They stayed until the very last corral (us) had started!John Bingham starts all the Rock n' Roll Events.  He's an awesome motivational speaker and speaks at all the Team in Training Inspiration dinners.  I heard him speak in Seattle and he's just amazing!

This was a random running coach cheering on all the participants.  It made me miss being a member of Team in Training because no matter where you were, anyone who knew why you were wearing purple would yell, "Go TEAM" and you could get a little further down the road.

So, here is a slide show of my pictures I took on the course.  I love my little camera and wish that I would have had it in Seattle.  Oh well....enjoy 13.1 miles from my perspective.  

Yipee!  I finished another one!  I never thought I would enjoy these types of events but it's so much fun and if I can do it, anyone can!  I could definitely feel the difference in how it feels to complete a half marathon with consistent training verses without and I believe that the first thing I said to Hope when I saw her is, "I will never do this again without training properly!"  Here are some pics that Ed took:

Hmmmm, you can't find me, can you?  Too bad I am not wearing a bright color.  Oh wait, I am!!

There you have it.....my second half marathon but the first time I have completed one here in Phoenix.  I was really missing Seattle's course while walking this one.  The half marathon here is a pretty ugly route.  That was my only complaint!  

We caught the light rail back to the van and we headed home.  Our lunch plans with Aunt Betty and Uncle Richard didn't work, which was probably for the best since I could smell myself at this point.  I ate my Subway for lunch and took a nap.  I was hurting pretty bad for the rest of the day and once I headed upstairs, I never came back down.  I moved around between my bedroom and my computer room, but I never went back down.  Since we are a family of technology, a little bell was not needed to alert Ed that I needed anything from downstairs.  I simply instant messaged him or just yelled down the stairs.  It was pretty comical.  I am not sure he felt that way and was missing Seattle since we were in a hotel room where I just shuffled to the bathroom and everything was within my reach.  Thanks for being my post race servant, Ed!

What was pretty cool is that the only painful part of this adventure was right after the race.  Of course, I was sore for a few days, but I didn't have trouble walking like I did in Seattle.  All the torturing of the feet has paid off!!  

Will I do another one you ask?  Stay tuned.......

January 6, 2010 - Our Security Adventure

*****Yes, I am aware that I have been back from Holland for well over a month now but I forgot about this entry.  The story must be told though....so here it is.*****

My alarm went off at 5am and I snoozed it, just like any other day.  Ed told me not to rush because the plane was already running late.  That was a bad idea because I just stayed in bed for a little while longer.  I am still feeling like crap, so a few minutes of extra sleep was nice!

We got ready and packed the rest of our stuff.  I was getting nervous because we were really cutting it close with our luggage.  I am sure something is going to be over the weight limit.  Oh well, we just have to wait and see. 

We checked out of the Tulip Inn and headed to the airport.  We did the normal routine of returning the rental car and heading to check in.  Again, I was nervous about this whole process because of the lovely “underwear bomber” as I like to call him.  Little did we know what we were in for!

We got to the ticket counter and began the check in process.  The lady was very nice and I wanted to make sure not to get upset at any time because that sure won’t help this whole situation.  At first, I thought she was telling us that we had way too much luggage but after talking to her about when we booked our flight and the rules now, we were okay.  Now, it’s time to weigh the luggage.  Oh spirits of luggage weight please be with us!  So, she weighed our luggage and it was all okay except for one….which didn’t even have souvenirs in it…it was all dirty clothes!  This particular suitcase ended up being almost twice the weight limit.  At this point, we just decided to pay the $50 and get on our way.  We finished with the ticket agent and headed to the kiosk to pay the penalty for having too much crap.  Ed went to pay and there was no option on the kiosk to pay so we jst went on our merry way. 

So, we headed to the dreaded security line.  We waited for about an hour and a half before it was our turn.  I have four words for you:  Full body pat downs.  This is what happens when you are leaving from the same place a guy did with explosives in his pants.  Have I mentioned how much I dislike this guy?  Anyway, after getting searched up, down, and sideways, we got through the pat down process.  Now, it was time to watch the TSA guy go through our luggage piece by piece.  I was worried when we checked in because our carry on luggage had food in it because we figured that they were going to make us check it in.  British Airways pretty much took all of Marsha’s luggage, so we were planning for the worst.  So, when they let us keep our backpacks with laptops and our “trolleys” (rolling carry on suitcases), I was scared that we would lose some of the precious cheese that was causing our luggage issues.  So, I watched the guy go through my luggage and he looked at the cheese and, for a minute, I thought he was going to confiscate it.  He started talking about how good the cheese was and each piece of cheese he pulled out, he talked about.  Finally, I was done and I looked over and the TSA guy going through Ed’s luggage had my little medicine cabinet and was going through it.  He pulled out the Rubbermaid ice packs that I had in there in case I needed to ice my feet.  I totally forgot about them and never used them anyway.  When they are thawed, they are gel….which is not allowed.  The scary thing is that the TSA guys had no idea what this was and were reading the package and talking to each other in Dutch and in my head I was screaming, “I am not an ice pack terrorist!!  I just have foot issues!”  I must have said, “You can toss that,” a hundred different ways before they finally said, “We are going to have to take this.”  PLEASE DO!  This is what I wanted to yell.  Finally, we were through security.  My only complaint is that there was nowhere to buy water at this point and I was still hacking a lung.  We finally got on the plane and I am really not looking forward to this leg of the trip.  We got settled and I got the aisle this time because of my illness…we didn’t want to totally freak someone out by making them sit next to me.  The flight went fine.  Since I was coughing so much, I didn’t sleep at all.  I went through most of a bag of economy cough drops and before I knew it, 10 hours had passed.

We arrived at the airport in Houston where we were to catch our connecting flight to Phoenix.  This was where it got interesting.  We got off the plane and went through Customs with no problem.  It was probably about 20 – 30 minutes or so.  We headed towards the gates and passed through baggage claim.  We weren’t sure if we were supposed to get our luggage or not since this was the first time we took this airline.  We were looking around and saw the cutest drug sniffing dog ever!  It was a little Beagle and I wanted to take a picture so bad but was afraid to get in trouble, so I didn’t.  We started to walk through to the rest of the gates and overheard an employee asking someone else why they didn’t have their luggage.  She kind of followed them so we hurried up and went back over the line to get back to the baggage claim since we realized we were supposed to get our luggage.  We retrieved all our crap and headed through the next set of gates.  There was another checkpoint and they had us go into another room and put all our luggage through an X-ray machine.  We did this and then headed down the hall to put our luggage that we had checked in on a belt to go back on the plane.  Then, we had to go through security AGAIN!  Off come the shoes, the jacket, out comes the laptop, liquids…..what on earth could I have done with all this stuff in the time I got off the plane?  Of course, I didn’t say a word for fear of upsetting someone and went through the whole process again.  I am exhausted by this point and realize that I am drenched.  I think that I may have had a fever on the plane and then it broke right before we had our airport workout.  Finally, we got to the gate with only a few minutes to spare.  The lesson learned on this trip was to allow more time through security and plan a longer layover.  At least  I was able to buy my coveted bottle of water to take on the plane and Ed could charge his cell phone. 

I think I had forgotten that Ed told me before we left that our flight home was on a smaller plane.  I looked out the window and saw what I like to call a “choo choo plane.”  The first thing that came to mind was a vision of the pilots running down the runway with their feet through the bottom of the plane like the Flinstones used to run in their car.  Really?  Hacking a lung on this plan may cause turbulence!  On the left side of the plane was a row of one seat and then on the right side, there were two seats. 

Ed and I sat down and then a lady sat down in the seat across the aisle from me.  Yes, Ed took the window seat.  Anyway, this lady sat down and I looked over and she had a mask on.  Seriously?  She is in the wrong seat.  I tried not to cough but my first bought came on and seconds later, she hit the flight attendant call button and within minutes, she was moved.  Sorry mask lady, I couldn’t help it.  I caught a foreign bug.  This was the last that I remember of this flight because after that airport workout, I slept the entire 2 hour flight.  I felt like I had seen both Joan and Jenny in the same day (personal trainer and massage therapist). 

Finally, we were home!  I was never so happy to see Sky Harbor ever!!  Since we flew into Terminal 2, we had no trouble getting our luggage.  No, Terminal 2 is not a runway……just a really small terminal.  Love it!  We ended up having to wait about 30 mintues for our ride because, get this, we were EARLY!  About half an hour early!  They really know how to build extra time into flight schedules!!  Continental was pretty prepared for this increase in security…..we have a new love for this airline!  We left Amsterdam about an hour and a half late and we arrived in Phoenix a half an hour early. 

What a day!!  I am making notes for the blog now and I can’t wait to get home to my own bed, my dog, cough medicine and hours of sleep!  No work until Monday and a massage tomorrow. 

I had a blast on this trip but home is always a great place to be.  Just like last time, I will be catching up on the blog after my trip has ended.