Thoughts and reflections

Well the pain has almost all but subsided. I fell so much better. So much better in fact that I am considering doing this again??? If you met Rob and his family you would know why. I will definately so this again for AT and will rack my brain in figuring out a way to increase my fundraising effort 10 fold!!

Thank you

Thank you to all of my supporters, especially to my husband. Thanks to all the AT contributors. AT raised over $850,000 during the marathon weekend!!! Thanks Aunt Cyndi and Uncle Todd for some Elijah holding time :) and for the Hannah sleep overs. Thank you Nana and Papa for doggy watching Autumn. Thank you Emily for checking on Angel!

The loot

Vacation Sunday-Day of no return

My morning on Sunday started off with a 2:30 am wake up call. After waking up and getting dressed I made my way to the food court to grab a bagel and some Powerade. I was at the staging area by 3:45 am and sat in the lot watching the band play. The first thing I noticed is how warm it was that morning. Not a good thing because I knew it meant the day would be hot hot hot. I waited until they announced it was time to check our bags and head to the corrals around 5am. At 6am the fireworks started and we were off. I felt awesome through mile 9. So awesome infact that I thought I would see Dave and tell him, this aint so bad. I should have just stopped that dialog right then and there. From there on it was downhill. The soles of my feet by my toes started to hurt, no KILL infact. I had to slow down and never regained my momentum. My feet were on fire, it literally felt like the skin had peeled off. I kept trekking along.
At Mile 13 I was halway done. In my head I said : "If I had signed up for the half marathon, I would be DONE right now!!!!!!!" My feet were still terrible but again I trekked along.
Chip and Dale in Disneys Magic Kingdom


At Mile 20 all things changed. I started to fight the "SWEEP". At Disney World you have to keep a 16 minute mile pace. If you fall behind they put up red flags at the mile marker and the state troopers put up a stop and you cannot proceed. They do this mainly because they shut down the roads for the runners and need to reopen the road. At mile 20 they announced we were 3 minutes ahead of the sweeper. Ok when you get to mile 20 there is no way that anyone was going to remove me peacefully from the course!!!! And so I had to pick it up. At mile 21 I was 2:30 ahead of the sweeper. At 22, 2:30, at 23 1:45, at 24 1:15. At mile 25 I was behind, the red flag was up, but because we had re entered Epcot and were off the roads, they did not impose a sweep!!!!! Thank goodess. Could you imagine getting swept then?? I can tell you that at that point I was spent. The sun was hot hot and I wanted tobe DONE. I knew that if I stopped to stretch, I would never get going again. I crossed the finish line at 7:10:36. Exhilerating is not even the feeling I felt. The hobble to the bus was bad, and the hotel room never seemed so far away from the bus stop as ever.
That night we hobbled over to Downtown Disney for dinner. I could eat whatever I wanted without any guilt lol!!!!!!!!

Vacation Saturday

Saturday was Hannahs Kids Race day. She put on her racing skirt and her AT shirt and off we went. Luckily they allowed the parents to run with their kids. Half way through the race Hannah was screaming :" I dont want to do this anymore!!!!" With much encouragement she finished!! She did however say "This was my first and last race of 2009"
Hannah and her medal.


After the race we spent some time in the pool and then headed off to Epcot. There we ate at the Biergarten in Germany and rode the Test Track. Elijah and I headed back tot he hotel room while David and Hannah stayed behind to ride Soarin. I knew it would be early rising for me!!

Vacation Friday

Day 2 started off with a visit to the Magic Kingdom. Any visit to the park is tiring. He sis not even make it through his first It;s a small world ride, He slept through the entire thing!! He also was a mama's boy and I ended having to carry him everywhere!! Not too fun at all.




At night we went to the AT Cure Team pasta dinner. We were able to meet Rob and his family. What a great night to see what you, my sponsors did for all of these kids. It was quite humbling. As guess speakers they had the guy who ran 63 marathons in 63 days for At. Also Hunter Kempo, Olympic Triathlete spoke. He was very humbling, down to earth. He said that he would return every year until he crossed the finish line first wearing an AT shirt. Last year he came in 4rth at his first. This year he only could do the half because of Hernia surgery. We had the opportunity to talk to him afterwards and meet his wife and son. Again I couldn't thank him enough because he was so so nice. We were able to take the picture below with him. The next day at the Kids race and he remebered Hannah;s name and even rooted her on!

Rob and his mom Laurie and brother Matthew.

Disney Vacation- Thursday

I have to preceed the vacation posting by the days beforehand, which were not so good. I happened to drop my phone smashing the screen, our dryer broke weds in the midst of laundry (and thankfully handy Morris came up to put on a new belt for us, Thank you very much Morris), the car would not start the morning of the flight when we were already late, and of course we missed our flight. Phewww. Luckily we got another flight right after although it was a conecting flight. We made it to Florida by 1PM.

If you ever stay at a Disney resort, The Magical express is great. Once we got off the plane we did not have to get our luggage at all. It was delivered directly to our room. Once we got to the hotel, our room was not ready, so we checked our bags and then headed to the Wide World of Sports where Hannah and I picked up our race bibs and goody bags. Then we headed to the expo to get some goodies and also go to the AT booth to pick up our T shirts. By the time we got back it was already getting late. We lost Elijah's one and only pacifier at the expo so I headed to Walmart to try and find a replacement. Unfortunately it is a special one that they no longer make and so this was the weekend that we weaned him off of the pacifier, obviously not by choice, but by necessity!!!!

Happy New Year

And so it is, Another year has passed us by, Of course it seems that as you get older and older, the years seem to fly by faster and faster. This past year was an improvement over the year before. I say that because nursing school was over and I was officially a nurse for the whole entire year. I still have a lot to learn in my job, but feel as though each and every day brings a new challenge.

So, what do you resolve to do this year??

I of course want to continue my road to good health. I want to continue running and use this year to run the "1rst annuals" to some of my previous races incluging the Lake Compounce 5K which was my first ever race, and improve my times in each. I also want to start integrating weight training more into my routines or more Yoga in order to become more toned.

Next I resolve to find a way to finish my bachelors without incurring debt for it. My work had an awesome tuition reimbursement that was for $8000 each year. This allowed me to take 6 credits per quarter. This was awesome!! Well as of January 1rst that great thing was slashed and now we only get $2000 for the year. Well that is enough for barely 6 credits for the entire year. So my plans of finishing my bachelors this year and transitioning into an APRN program was placed on the back back burner. But where there is a will there is a way right??

Lastly I resolve for good health and happiness for my family. Job security for David and happiness in anything that he does. We are unsure about the definity of his job but hope that if he does get laid off in the next month or two that it is to open up a great opportunity for something new.

Oh and I would like to win the lottery this year :) You have to add in a resolution like that!!