We met Morgan and Wes at a park on post where Wes's battalion was hosting an Easter Egg hunt and cookout. Morgan was pretty much in charge and they still volunteered to take Mikey! It was chilly, windy and overcast, so they had to call off the kids fashion show, but Morgan assures me that Mikey would have won :-) I dressed him in a white collared shirt, seer sucker pants, and his little Sperry's, I just wanted to eat him up! They said that he LOVED the egg hunt and he even found the Golden Egg! It was the first egg that he found...that's because I only produce winners! They also said that they've never seen a child react to the Easter Bunny the way he did. Wes said that Mikey stopped, looked at him for a second, and then laughed as if saying "Hah...you're not real!". I'm excited to see how he will do on the Bunny's lap this weekend. They told us that when they got home he played in a cooler that he found in the garage for like an hour and was just thrilled. Morgan said that he went to bed with minimal fussing and that he didn't make a peep all night long! I'm so happy that he didn't scare them or act like a gremlin! They had fun today too and said that he pretty much ate non-stop all day...that's my boy! I could tell that Mikey really liked them and felt really comfortable there, its so nice to have friends that your kids love too. They gave Brian and me some much needed time together out of Lawton, we appreciate them so much!
So after we dropped Mikey off we hit the road down to Dallas. Since Brian ran the race last year we knew exactly what hotel to stay in. The race start was literally right outside the front door of the hotel and the convention center that hosted the expo was attached to the hotel! We missed the expo by about 30 minutes, so we checked into the hotel and made our way over to American Airlines area to watch the Dallas Stars play the Colorado Avalanche. Brian dropped me off to get tickets while he drove back to the hotel to park the car and walk back over. We didn't realize that it was only about 2 miles away. Just as I got in line to purchase tickets I was approached by a couple who asked me how many tickets I needed. I was skeptical and had no cash so I was about to tell them no. Before I could even open my mouth they said that they had bought 4 tickets and only needed 2 and that they couldn't sell them so they were just GIVING them to me! I'm sure the look on my face was priceless, especially after I saw where we would be sitting! The seats were about halfway between the blue line and the goal about 7 rows up from the ice! We were gonna buy cheap nosebleed seats!!! To make matters even better we were surrounded by some really fun people who didn't mind Brian's heckling. The game was a blast, but it was a little weird sitting in another area, cheering for someone other than the Hurricanes. I was pretty excited to see that Ray Whitney and Erik Cole play for the Stars though! It was cool to see Jaromir Jagr play for the Stars too (even though he's getting really old and probably should retire). We drank A LOT of beer, had a lot of fun, and met some really cool people. It was such a blast.
Once the game was over we headed outside to watch a Led Zepplin cover band. They were really good and it was really fun entertainment. I'm a big fan of the area that the American Airlines arena is in. When the band was finished we walked over to Dick's Last Resort for some dinner and more beer (bad idea). I know they are mean and inappropriate at Dick's, but they were SO racist!! While it was horrible, it was also hysterical. When dinner was done we decided it was time to go back and go to bed since we did have 13.1 miles to run in the morning. We made the trek back to the hotel in the rain and passed out almost immediately.
I woke up several times during the night feeling sick to my stomach so I was pretty convinced that there was no way I was running this morning, but when I got up I felt well enough to run. Since we didn't pick up our packets yesterday we had to go get our numbers this morning. It was SO COLD and WINDY! It was absolutely miserable. I think it was almost worse than running the Marine Corps Marathon during the beginning stages of Hurricane Sandy. Since it was so cold we decided to go back up to our room until the race started. We were in corral 8, so even after the race started there was plenty of time for us to go down and get in the gates. It worked out perfectly, I was able to take pictures of the race start from the warmth of my hotel room, fill up my water, use my own bathroom, and not stand outside in the wind and cold. Once we finally went outside and started moving I started to feel okay warmth wise and was glad that I made the decision NOT to wear long sleeves. Brian ran with me for the first 2 miles before I set him free. Once he started moving he ran a pretty fast race (finishing about 30 minutes ahead of me...sigh...). I felt pretty good actually and was keeping a decent pace for the very minimal training that I did. At first I freaked out because I forgot my GPS watch, but it turned out to be a good thing because there were not mile markers at every mile (and there was no rhyme or reason to why certain miles were marked and others weren't) so there were several times where I was thinking "I have to be getting close to mile 7" and the next mile marker I approached was 9! We ran through some VERY wealthy areas of Dallas and it was fun to look at these beautiful mansions. There were bands at every few miles, local high school cheerleaders, lots of people who lived along the route, and my beloved TNT cheer stations.
I opted to wear my TNT shirt today simply because I have missed running with the organization so much. It was awesome to get support from coaches that I didn't even know and listen to the cheer stations go nuts as I ran by. I didn't see a huge TNT turnout, certainly not as big as what our NC chapters put out, but there were quite a few coaches along the route. I seriously miss TNT, my team in particular.
When I finally finished Brian had been waiting for a while and was freezing to death (since we left our warm clothing in the hotel). We had to hail a cab back to the hotel and got a late check-out so that we could shower and nap. We were both exhausted and quite hungover. Since I haven't been training my legs were throbbing so badly that I couldn't fall asleep. Once I finally did get to sleep housekeeping knocked on our door 2 separate times. The second time Brian woke up and told her to go away, it was kind of funny. We woke back up around 2:30, packed up our things, and headed to get some food since we were both starving. Of course, we got In-N-Out then we were on our way back to pick up Mikey.
Once we got home with Mikey we could tell that he had had a blast and was totally exhausted. He went to bed after a nice long bath...the boy loves his tub time. He didn't make a peep once we put him in bed. All in all, it was an absolutely wonderful weekend!
I taught Ray Whitney's nephew! Your weekend sounds awesome, I'm proud of you for running even though you were super hung over... I find that I am so unproductive after I drink these days. It sucks getting old! haha
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