A Race for the Future

Life is full of choices.


Some of them are simple, like what to wear for a race. I pack a few pairs of shorts or long pants depending on the temperature and humidity and a few different jerseys depending on my mood. I've worn Team in Training purple for TNT supported races and when I want to really push myself. Half Fanatic blue means I'm probably out there for a good time (and not necessarily on the clock!).  Rock n Roll Chicago was a completely different feel. It was also the first time I've ever worn Team Future Orange.


We've been doing the series since 2006 but didn't pay a lot of attention to the Expo vendors until we met Dan and Jackie Evans last year in San Jose. They were contestants on Season 5 of The Biggest Loser and between them lost 225 pounds during the show. They established The Kids Fit Foundation to fund and provide fitness programs for at risk youth and their families.  


Given my 3 year, 50 pound weight loss target, it seemed like such a great cause to support. Between training for a dozen races a year and some diet changes, I understand what it's like to be able to take control of my health and of my life. I have a lot more energy now. I've been off hypertension medication for over a year. I feel happier.  Fitness as a cause... just fits! 


Susan and I were waking up in Chicago at 4 AM to get ready for the race. As usual the virtual racer sat on the chair next to the bed. This is a reminder that this technique is a great way to remember all the stuff you need for the race, even if you're driving there (*coughDANcough*).

One of the pre-race pictures.  The team is small, but rather vocal and highly visible.

Susan with Jackie. It was already 75 degrees at 6:30 AM, so we were planning on taking it easy and hydrating like mad.

Just a few pictures during the race. I actually had some thoughts of pushing my pace, but my heart rate monitor dictated otherwise.

Mile 4 - being passed by fruit. Not my proudest moment.

Christina and a Team Future member I didn't get the chance to meet earlier. It was great to hear a cheer from the sidelines at mile 6.

And one at the finish line in Grant Park under what turned out to be a beautiful Chicago morning (with Jackie, Joe, Dan and Jewel).

If I trace back the series of events that leads me to certain points in my life, I think this is one I probably should have seen coming. My Bucket List got me to the race circuit with Team in Training, a friend in TNT hooked us up with the Half Fanatics, a chance meeting on a plane to Phoenix got us hooked on the Rock n Roll Series and meeting Dan and Jackie at our home town race led us in Chicago last weekend wearing some awesome orange shirts. 


It didn't feel like I had to make a choice. It felt like it was meant to happen.

Thank you to all of our friends and family who donated so generously to our fundraisers. We raised just over $2400 for Kids Fit this season.  We plan to stay in touch with Dan and Jackie's team and hope to be around when they announce a California location for The Biggest Loser RunWalk series. Their first RunWalk event (5K, 10K and 15K) is scheduled for Racine, Wisconsin on September 16, 2012. 

Life To Do List

This list was first created in mid-2004 after I took the David Allen Company's "Getting Things Done" class - one I'd highly recommend if you are looking to make your life more organized and lower your stress level. The assignment was to create a 30,000 ft view of big lofty goals to motivate you to make steps to get yourself moving when the opportunity presents itself.

1) Have a meal in all 50 States in the US (meals eaten flying over the state or at the airport during a layover don't count) - completed in June of 2005 with Alaska.

2) Complete a marathon (Done! First one in June 2005, now up to 11 full and 31 half marathons)

3) Get a Distinguished Toastmaster ranking - Completed August 2006

Plans for existing - to be completed this year.

4) Have a meal on all 7 continents.  One more checked off in 2012 - Australia. On schedule for Antarctica in 2015.

5) (this is the one I forgot) Publish a novel.  There's an online event in November called NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month).  I've had a short story or two in me for some time now, and I think it's time to get one of them out!

Still working on these - no time table

6) Play 3 instruments successfully in front of an unbiased audience - 2 of 3, Piano and Saxophone.  Does a voice count as an instrument?  I'd love to sing a number with an a capella group!

7) Speak 3 languages fluently enough to carry on a 10 minute conversation with a native speaker - 2 of 3, English (duh) and Spanish.  American Sign Language maybe?

8) See 7 Wonders of the world - need to figure out which 7 (natural, ancient, modern...)

9) See a live platypus - Checked off in Eungella at the Broken River Mountain Resort.

10) Celebrate my 50th Wedding Anniversary - 18 years in June, 32 to go!

And to replace the three completed items in my Top 10.  Here's where it gets interesting:
11) Introduce a friend to the person they eventually marry.  Note that one of them actually has a referral bonus .
12) Save a life. The list is also to remind me of things I CAN do, not just things I want to do.  Knowing that I want to do this is a reminder not to hesitate when the need arises.  I give blood and platelets on a regular basis, so that's a step.
13) Complete 50 total Half and Full Marathons by age 50.  I'm having so much fun doing them now that I can't just walk away. This shouldn't be a problem - 2 per year - as long as I stay healthy. This is way ahead of schedule and will be done in January of 2013 at Rock n Roll Arizona!

In the mean time, I hope you've got a list of your own.  This kind of thing shouldn't wait until you're pushing 40 like I did.  There were so many times I was a half hour away from another state or put off doing a speech for Toastmasters just because I didn't have a commitment to do it.

But when all was said and done, it's a great conversation starter.

"Yeah, I've been there... I've been to all 50 states".

A Waterslide Moment

A Waterslide Moment

Current mood:happy

(My first blog, originally posted in January of 2007. The sentiment is still true today)

This is a link to the past for ~Alicia's Defining Moments GBE.  Read more of the 26 blogs posted for this topic here.

Three years ago, Susan and I went to Cancun for our winter vacation.  It was an all-inclusive deal where you could sit on the hotel beach chairs all day, swim up to the poolside bar for a cocktail and gorge yourself on the buffets morning, noon, night, and well into the wee hours if you wanted to.  We climbed the pyramids of Chichen Itza, visited the aviaries and snorkled the entire man-made river at Xcaret.  The zip-line picture in my profile was taken on Isla de Mujeres during this trip.  It's still probably the best vacation I've taken to date, but of all the things that stand out, the one thing I remember MOST is the thing that I DIDN'T do.  

For those of you who've been to Cancun or other Mexican vacation paradises, you're probably familiar with Senor Frogs.  It's good, classic Mexican food with a spring break decor, drinks by the yard and live bands and dancing seems to start about four in the afternoon.  This particular restaurant had a great feature - a waterslide that started on the second floor, ran over the main stage on the first floor and dropped out into the lagoon outside the restaurant. 

I wasn't wearing anything I really cared about getting wet, I could leave all my stuff with my wife and it was 80 degrees out at 8:30 at night so getting soaking wet would have been really comfortable. But even with the atmosphere, the decor and yes, two or three drinks, I watched about a half dozen people slide down into a huge splash and applause and JUST SAT THERE.

Mind you, I'm not an attention whore, though I love it when it's in a good way. I'm getting to be more of an experience collector, even back then. The fact that this incident still bugs me to this day makes me want to remember what it felt like AFTER we packed up, left Senor Frogs and took the two mile walk back to the hotel. All I could talk about was "I SHOULD have...".

So having done this and as I live my life now, I occasionally come across these "Waterslide Moments" - times when I look at something that looks like fun, but the cautious adult in me is overestimating the risk and underestimating the reward. I ask myself, "what's the worst that could really happen?" And more importantly, "is this something I'll have fun remembering next week, next year or when I'm too old to do it ever again?"  The decision to just do it takes less time and I don't miss as many opportunities anymore. 

Getting back to Cancun again isn't even on my radar. But next Christmas the plan is a trip to Buenos Aires to do some tango and a cruise to Antarctica to have pictures taken with a iceberg-load of penguins. We hope to book the trip soon and I'm looking forward to blogging from the ship. Planning to get there has been on my life to-do list for years now. On the way, I'm expecting a few times when I'll actually take the plunge at a Waterslide Moment.

Live. It beats the hell out of the alternative!

50 States - Crossing that Fine Line

50 States - Crossing that Fine Line

Current mood:peaceful

Originally posted on MySpace on 2/4/2007. Reposting it here because I'm trying to get my life focused on what matters. Wish me luck!)

There's a fine line between hobby and mental illness. 

Talking about your hobby, even a weird one, evokes a polite nod and a smile from your friends.  If you start seeing reactions like wide eyes, long pauses before responses to your stories or eye-rolling, you should consider that you may have crossed the line.

Consider my "Life To-Do" list.  The list was inspired by a class I took at work about "Getting Things Done" by The David Allen Company (btw: highly recommended if your organizational skills need help, like mine did).  One of the things the class teaches is to create not only a daily to-do list, but also a weekly list of larger objectives, monthly/yearly lists of over all objectives and a '30,000 foot' list of life goals.  Overall, you should be working toward things you want to do in your life.  I posted a blog about this on New Years to update where I was as far as progress. 

One of my favorite goals was to eat a meal in all 50 states in the US.  "Eat a meal" was added since I didn't think the in-flight pack of peanuts flying over Iowa on the way to Chicago should count and you should spend at least SOME time in the state.  Airport layovers are cheap checkoffs, so I went back to states where that was the only meal.

I had a great head start on this list my senior year before college.  My parents, two brothers and one cousin drove through 23 states on a month long trip in the Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser, passing through, in rough order staring in California: Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and on the way back, Missouri, Kansas and Colorado.  30 days, 6,000 miles, a few thousand bucks in car repair bills and a TON of fast food later, I was halfway through the 50 states.

I took care of Maine in a road trip in college, and Nebraska and Utah driving to California in a snowstorm after graduate school in Wisconsin (go Badgers!).  I checked off several states for business including Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Hawaii, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and West Virginia. Yes, work picked up the bill for Florida and Hawaii!  BWAAHAAHAHA!  Susan and I purposely drove to Rhode Island for a lobster dinner during a trip to Boston in 2003, JUST TO CHECK IT OFF THE LIST. So I was down to just 8 states left.

Another item on the list was to complete a marathon.  After multiple knee surgeries, I knew this one would be tough, but I found out about Team in Training, a group that raises money for the Leukemia Lymphoma Society that trains people to run OR WALK marathons in exchange for raising funds for cancer research.  TNT sponsored a race in Anchorage, Alaska, one of my missing states.  I decided that would be my last state AND my first marathon. Now, I just had to figure out what to do with the other 7.

This is where I started getting reactions that might indicate I crossed the line into 'mental illness'.  I planned a 5 day trip in 2005 to check of 5 states.  I flew into Tulsa Oklahoma, landing in the mid afternoon and drove east to West Siloam Springs, Arkansas for dinner.  I drove back to Tulsa, slept there and had breakfast before my noon flight to Louisville,Kentucky.  That weekend was "Thunder over Louisville", the fireworks and air show that marked official kickoff of two weeks of partying before the Kentucky Derby. Sunday morning I flew to New Orleans early and drove to Bay St. Louis, Mississippi for a crawdad lunch.

After that, I spent two days in New Orleans.  It was too early for Mardi Gras, but there was a Jazz Festival that Saturday with live bands just about everywhere.  I hung out with a guy I met at a blackjack table who was there for a conference. The last night started out with a dinner of catfish, hush puppies, a Hurricane, and continued with a Hand Grenade and 11 (count 'em ELEVEN)  kamikazes (this from someone who really DOESN'T drink much!).  What followed that is a story I will take to my grave.  Seriously.  I DID make it back to the hotel without incident (or piercings or tattoos, as far as I know…).

This left just two states – New Mexico and North Dakota.  I took a four day weekend, flew intoFargo on Thursday.  I walked my 18 mile training the next day in just over 4 hours along Roger Maris Park.  For those of you who train alone in warm weather, carry lots of water! There are NO water fountains available in the public park, maybe because they freeze?  I flew to Albuquerque, New Mexico the next day and spent time at the outdoor Rockfest.  Live bands again.  My timing was pretty good even though it was sheer luck.

June 16^th, 2005 was the day before our 10^th wedding anniversary.  We landed inAnchorage, Alaska and met with some friends down town for steak and king crab.  Here's a picture of the gory aftermath.

The next day, I walked the Mayor's Midnight Sun Marathon, beating my goal time by nearly 8 minutes.  I'll be going back to Anchorage this June to do it again - hopefully it won't rain!

Some people think they need reasons for the weird stuff that they do. I just like to do weird stuff and rationalize it after it happens.

50 states - CHECK

First Marathon - CHECK

Thanks to Wayno for his Vacation Memories blog for goading me into finally getting this one out there.