It's Pumpkin Time!

After my run in Brooklyn this morning-- I headed back to Manhattan and another park, Central Park. I had seen advertisement for this festival in the park earlier this morning, and was curious to come see all the fun stuff first hand! There was this massive line of people to get into a pumpkin patch! They would all get a free pumpkin to take home-- one per person, isn't that great?! I didn't nave time to stand in the line, but had fun watching all of these little kids trade pumpkins-- eye them with a spin to make sure that they were the perfect one! It was a fun family affair-- and we can never have enough of those, especially here in the city, where families are so seldom seen it's nice to be reminded that they're still here;)




























They had all different kinds of fun activities for kids. There were face paintings, games, concerts . . . fall markets . . . and more!





Did you know that there is such thing as professional pumpkin carvers--? Well now ya do, and here's a picture of one of them! He was carving peoples faces on their pumpkins too!

Nike's Human Race 10k

This morning I got to wake up bright and early to head down to Brooklyn, Prospect Park, for my very first real race! The subway lines were of course all a mess this morning and all backed up-- so there were a ton of us that were going to be cutting it close. When we got to our final stop, (there were actually a ton of our fellow runners on the train with us) we all started running up and out of the ground towards the starting line-- it looked like fire coming out of the ground as we were all in bright red and yellow! There were a million of us-- literally running about a half a mile through the park to the starting line. This girl I sat next to on the train told me that we wouldn't start until 8:30 because that's what they did last year. . . I heard a gunshot-- 8:00 sharp . . . the race had begun! We continued to run, only quickening our paces. . . and then suddenly we saw it. An army of red and yellow soldiers-- literally thousands began charging towards our hundreds-- it was like the race was going in two completely opposite directions! We kept running. . . though gradually sifted off of the main path onto the muddy grass-- did I mention it was raining? Haha it was only little sprinkles here and there, but it had been pouring all night, and the sky was ready to open back up again to finish the job! We finally made it to the beginning where we had to check our bags into the bus-- yes, bus. We had 10 school buses full of our bags with our numbers attached to them, because the race would begin in a completely different place than where it would end.

We started running! It seemed like we'd been running for a little while when we came across the 4 mile point! YES! Wait-- those were the easiest four miles I've ever run! I must be on fire-- must have been my breakfast, or just the adrenaline! About a minute later we passed the one mile mark-- the 4 mile mark we had previously seen was what we were suppose to pay attention to the second time around the park. Now these parks aren't like UT parks-- well national parks, yes. But city parks-- not even close. This park was like a mini forest about a 3 mile circumference, full of trails, statues, trees, meadows, lakes. . . it was gorgeous!

The run felt so good-- I can't wait 'till my next one! I was nervous about how much energy I should be conserving to make it, so I held back a little in the beginning not wanting to get too tired too fast. But as I came to the 5 mile mark-- I held nothing back! I felt like I was sprinting-- it was by far my fastest mile of the race-- I don't know if it was that my endorphins had finally started kicking in, or if my body was just finally warmed up, just that it was the last 1.3 miles of the race, the rain that was beginning to sprinkle us, or the fact that it was all level plateaus and down-hill's to the end-- maybe it was just the combination of it all-- but it felt great! I actually finished with my Ipod on the same song that I began with. . . Chambawamba. . . haha- I'd made the full cycle on that play list. There was mud everywhere, but we didn't care--we wanted our banana's and Gatorade! They kept passing us food-- but we had to hold everything they gave us because there was nowhere to sit-- and we had to stand in a line, literally 10 buses long-- to get our bags that we'd checked in at the beginning of the race. I stood in line for about 30 minutes and moved up about one bus' legnth. I was going to be here all day-- in the rain! My arms were getting tired of holding all my fruit and drinks so I brilliantly began eating my edible hand weights. Then just put all my leftovers, (pit, core, and peeling) in my water bottle and screwed the lid on tight-- voila! I needed to find something to entertain myself besides tapping my foot in line.

Totally oblivious to whatever the silent cue was, I watched as everyone in front and behind me whorded the front of the line to bus "0". That was my bus-- it was also the bus that had all the stuff on it for all the Tardies like me-- therefore packed clear full with our bags. Then suddenly bags began moshing from the bus-- seriously-- our bags floated over the crowd, passed around without any sense of direction until they were either snagged personally by their owners or dropped to the muddy ground beneath us. Hundreds of bags---hundreds of people--- all over my head. I could hardly see anything, totally lost in the mass of wet smelly runners. I could see below me though and had to watch out for the bags below-- not to get them anymore muddy or roughed up than they already were! I couldn't believe it! Everyone was going crazy-- there was so much noise, confusion and frustration! I finally found my bag-- thank goodness-- I went to walk away and just about stepped on something-- only had to look once to see that it was my camera case holding my camera-- in the mud! It had fallen out sometime before I'd even discovered my bag. I was just so so grateful that I found it because there were so many people shouting that their bags were gone. There was one of the main Nike guys running toward the mosh pit of people and bags surrounding the bus screaming, "Who's idea was this!!! Do you have any idea how stupid this is?! This defeats the whole purpose of the 'bag watch'!!!" We couldn't have said it any better. Although he was the man with the power, it was already too late. The entire bus had been emptied onto the streets. We were stoked to finally find our stuff so we could leave the contentious scene.

It was all sMilEs after that though-- we did it! For me and my friends it was one of our first real races-- we're all excited to see what race will be next!

Happy Birthday LEX!

We celebrated Lexi's birthday on Monday with all of our friends-- it was so much fun to see our friends that we haven't seen forever! We went to one of Lexi's favorite restaurants. . . originally "Pizza by the Inch,". . . called "PINCH,"which came together with a small restaurant from downtown in the villiage that was a variety of "Something Macaroni," called "SMAC" so their new place is called, "Pinch and Smac" I kid you not! Their food was awesome! Here are a few pics we snuck at the end with the few of us that were left.



These were our numbers for all of our tables:



We got home that night from the party only to find another surprise in the kitchen left from our neighbor Bobbi from downstairs-- a huge Crumbs cupcake with a candel for Lex to blow out. Antonia and I busted out the matches and our cameras for another Kodak moment. As I went to get my stuff out of my room, my computer started ringing. . . yes, my computer--It was Fuzz! He was calling me on Skype! So we brought him into the kitchen with us and set him on the table, turned out the lights, and lit the candel. . . "Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you. . . . !" We all sang even Fuzz-- in the computer center in Iraq. Lexi's his friend too! It was so much fun ;) Happy Birthday-- birthday girl!

Team in Training SHOUT-OUT!

If you look up on the right hand corner of my blog you'll see a small link to my site for Team in Training. I have loved being a part of this team! I've never been a runner but knew the second that I heard about this that it was something that I wanted/needed to be a part of. We are earning money for the Leukemia, Lymphoma Society, to help finance cures for cancer. I am running with people that actually have cancer-- they claim to need us, but I'm telling you, these people are changing my life! We train as a group twice a week and also on our own. I've been able to see various parts of the city that I never even knew were there! To think I might have lived here and never seen them! I started this training with about 2 miles being my limit-- never having really pushed myself much farther than that, but yesterday we were suppose to run 6 miles in Central park, and I kinda missed the turn off the trail on my way back...totally got lost talking to some other runners- but got an extra great workout! I felt great at the time, but my body reminded me later that this was something I'd never done to it before...I totally crashed, my bed and blankets never felt so comfortable mmm... So there are some in our group that are running the full marathon, either in Phoenix, Miami, or Orlando in Disney World-- and then there are half marathons with each of those. I'm signed up for the Orlando half marathon in January-- And to my surprise. . . the fundraising is turning out to be more challenging then the running! I'm trying to earn the bulk of it by early November. It's at that time that we have to tell them whether or not we think we'll be able to earn the rest of the money, so that they can book our flights and hotel for the race. So everyone please tell all your friends and family--- your work could also be a great sponsor! Okay-- so there's my plug on Team in Training;)