Livestrong Challenge 2007

A., Z. and I participated in the Livestrong Challenge 5k walk today. It was an amazing experience and I can't wait for next year to be able to do it again! The three of us were a team and raised $3550 thanks to a lot of very generous people. It was enough to get my name in the printed program :-))

The event actually started yesterday which was when we picked up our registration packet and our "fundraising incentives". Everyone gets the event tee-shirt, but we also got event water bottles and baseball caps and I got a nice event gym bag. We handed in one last minute donation check and then went to the Livestrong Village which is where various sponsors and vendors set up. We got our pictures taken by Embassy Suites in a kind of photo booth, we got pedometers at a health booth and in the Livestrong booth we got Livestrong yellow wrist bands and Livestrong Challenge temporary tattoos. In that same booth we got the yellow "I am a Survivor" and the white "In Honor of" and "In Memory of" cards to pin to our tee-shirts for the walk. We also each added my sister Lisa's name to a big yellow paper chain they were making. It was REALLY hot yesterday and the registration and Village was in the gymnasium (it was held at a Community College) so we left completely drenched, but we were excited. It was funny on the way out, there was a walkway lined with bunches of regular latex balloons that kept popping as we walked because of the heat. Z. HATES popping balloons so she made us walk on the grass well away from them.



So we had to somehow get to sleep early because we had to wake up this morning at 5am (UGH!). We had an early dinner and then Z. went into the tub and afterwards I gave her some Benadryl and put her to bed with the cat. I don't normally drug her to get her to sleep, but she's been up till 11pm or so this past week and there was no way she was going to be able to function today on that little sleep. It worked well and she was sound asleep in no time. A. and I managed to get into bed by 10pm (a miracle for me- I never get in bed that early) and I took 2 Benadryl so was asleep pretty quickly (A. can fall asleep easily so he didn't need to be drugged). We all managed to get up at 5am, get showered and dressed and due to some good breakfast planning were able to get out the door by 5:45am (we made egg sandwiches and iced coffee/tea the night before so only had to heat and eat- in fact I ate most of mine in the car- Z. ate cereal, she wouldn't dare eat eggs). Before we left we put on our pedometers and our temporary tattoos.

We got to the event by around 6:15 and got a great parking space close to the action in the parking lot closest to the events (that lot was closing at 6:30am which was one reason we got there so early). We took some time at our parking spot to pin our numbers and all of our tribute cards to our shirts. Z. and A. each had 2 cards and I had 5. Some of those cards had 15 to 30 people each. We know way too many people who have cancer or have died from cancer :-( We took pictures of each other and a woman in the car next to us offered to take a picture of the three of us. She had a bright yellow car (Livestrong colors are yellow, black and white) so we got a little bit of the car in the photos on purpose.



We headed over to our lane. We were pretty early and it was mostly cyclists there that early but there were some walker/runners around. They were still setting up and huge things of balloons were being walked by us. There was a couple of small bleachers set up near the starting line so we sat down there. We stayed up there till it was almost time for the walk/runners to go and had great views of Lance Armstrong as he cycled up to the small stage area and of all the cyclists as each group started (it began with Lance and 3 other famous cyclists who I have no idea who they were, then the fast 100 milers, then the "gentle" (aka slower) 100 milers, then the 70 milers, then the 40 milers, then the 10 milers and finally us 5k walk/runners.

We were pretty close to the front of the pack when we started, but most of the people up front were runners so we were being passed right and left. Our pace was set by Z. since she was the slowest walker but I was impressed with how well she kept up the pace (she normally complains bitterly that we are walking too fast or about stitches in her side, her feet hurting etc., but she didn't really do that- maybe one complaint about her feet later in the walk). The 5k route was different from the bike routes. It was through 2 residential neighborhoods next to the college. Some of the residents in the neighborhoods came out to cheer us all on. We found out later that one of the neighbors had a team (he is battling testicular cancer now) as he won an inspirational award later in the day.




The course was pretty flat, the weather was humid but not hot and it was overcast, so it was a pretty easy 3+ mile walk. However I was wearing my compression stockings and some sneakers that aren't quite like regular sneakers (they have a strap like thing in the back instead of being fully enclosed). I had worn these things all over NM and was fine, but today my feet were sliding around in them (I should have worn socks over my stockings) and I ended up with a blister the size of a quarter on the ball of each foot (ouch!). Early on (we hadn't even gotten out of the college parking lot yet) Z. asked me how many miles we had gone. That brought a lot of laughs from the people around us. I explained that we hadn't even gone one mile yet. There were markers at the 1, 2 and 3 mile points, and a water station at the 1.5 mile mark. That made it easier for Z. to judge the distance (kind of). We finished in about an hour and maybe 5 minutes. The survivors crossed the finish line on the right while the others finished in the left lane. There was an announcer who was reading off the survivors entry numbers and names. However for some reason the announcer read my name off as Robert something or other and shrugged his shoulders at me. As the survivors crossed the finish line we were handed a yellow rose and our pictures were taken.




After walking through the cool mist tent and going into the locker rooms in the gym to use the rest rooms we walked over the post event Party area. First thing we did was get some food. Each participant has a tear off on their entry bibs for a free meal (and one for a free beer also, but we didn't use those). The meal was a pork bbq sandwich, cole slaw and potato chips (there was a vegetarian bbq option also) and I thought hmmm, Z.'s not going to eat anything but the roll and the chips. She was starving so I offered to put the meat next to the roll and if she liked it she could put it inside. Amazingly, she liked it (or she was hungry enough not to care) and ate every last bit. After eating we wandered around the booths, which didn't take long as we were tired and wanted to sit and then plopped ourselves on the grass in the middle of the place as besides the eating area there were no places to sit. We remembered we had a blanket in the car and A. graciously offered to go get it (note to self, next year bring beach chairs like some people who no doubt did this last year did). We kept the blanket as a home base and watched some musicians perform and watched the giant tv screen next to the stage which had video of the race (we saw ourselves start the race and A. and Z. finish the race) and photo tributes (I had submitted one of my sister but it was too late to get in). We got up and got some little freebies at some booths, got our pictures taken for free 3 times by Nissan employees running around with cameras, drank lots of water and used the port-a-potties a few times. There was an announcer kind of guy who was wandering around interviewing people (the interviews were on the loudspeaker and sometimes they were on the big tv screen). So we were entertained but we had a long wait as we got there before 9:30am and were waiting for Lance Armstrong to speak at 1:30pm.



A nice aside, there were two teenage boys who seemed to live in the neighborhood next to the college that we walked through. They had their shirts off and had put body paint on their chests and faces. They were cheering us on all along the 5k route. Every time we saw them they had added more and more (and different) body paint to themselves. Later at the post-even party they were interviewed by the announcer. People had been walking around with these yellow inflatable stick like things and I was trying to find out where they got them so I could get one for Z. I saw the two body paint guys walking toward me and each one had one so I asked them where they got them. They said that they were handing them out at the finish line. I said (nicely) "oh, they didn't give them to me" and thanked them and continued walking. I got stopped by one of the Nissan camera guys about getting my picture taken when one of the boys came running up to me with both of their inflatable thingies and said, "here, you can have ours". I thought it might have had something to do with my yellow survivor card pinned to my shirt, but thought it was very sweet of them and Z. was happy when I came back with them. Speaking of Z., I think I mentioned in a previous post that there was going to be a Kidzone with a moon bounce and face painting. Now I knew that she wouldn't be interested in the face painting but figured she'd love the moon bounce as every time she has been in one you can't drag her out of it, but no, she was completely not interested in it and wouldn't even go near it to check it out. Go figure.

So as it got closer to 1:30 we moved our blanket right up to the stage and had a prime front row seat for Lance Armstrong's speech. Unfortunately my camera batteries had started dying not long before. I had forgotten to put new batteries in the camera or in the case and had two sets of dead batteries. I was able to get a few more pictures by mixing up the sets, but just before Lance Armstrong gave his speech they were both completely dead. We took a couple cell phone photos but those are usually pretty awful quality. Oh well! I got a couple while he was handing out awards that are kind of goofy but nice and close up! After his speech and then watching his interview on Meet the Press on the tv screen (which was very interesting- for instance did you know that only 10% of cancer research grants are funded by the US government- scientists are going to other countries to work because of this) we packed up our blanket and headed home, exhausted but energized by the experience. We are hoping that next year we can get some other families to join us. Seeing the larger teams the energy and the fun they were having was very evident. I think Z. would love to walk with a bunch of her friends. It would also be a lot more fun at the post event party with a group of people. So, what do you say friends, will you join us next year?