Las Vegas Recap, Part 1

As predicted, I'm like the worst blogger in history. We're now status-post 23 days from my Las Vegas trip and half marathon finish and I'm just finally sitting down to recap the weekend! I thought I'd be so full of free time after finishing with Team Challenge, but quite the contrary and I have stayed pretty busy over the past few weeks! I do have to say that I have loved being able to sleep in on Saturdays and haven't totally missed having to run in the cold weather. I was even able to get back to Faith and Light, a group for people with disabilities that I'm involved with here in Atlanta, since I had been missing the Saturday morning meetings in order to train. It's nice to see all of my friends there again!

So, I'll do a short and sweet recap of Vegas weekend, but most importantly of the race!

We got to Vegas on Friday morning and checked into the MGM Grand (Amanda and I had a great room with a view of the strip ... amazing!) and went over to the race expo. It was held at Mandalay Bay, which looked like it was really close by but in actuality was a pretty good walk. Not a huge deal, it's not like we weren't all running 13 miles in a few days, but I'm pretty lazy. The race expo was neat ... a little overwhelming with all the vendors and people and stuff going on. We picked up our race numbers and Amanda and I changed corrals so that we could start with my friends from Georgia that I always ran with. (seemed like a foolproof plan, but one of our mentors Betsy ended up changing her corral too so I wasn't able to run with her). We took some silly Elvis pictures, drank some beer, and got some pretty funny stickers for our singlets.

On Friday night, Amanda and I got tickets to Ka, the Cirque du Soleil show at MGM Grand. 1 word for the show ... incredible! It was totally worth the expensive tickets and we had a great time. Even the expensive gin cocktail I had was worth it, although I was spinning and about knocked flat on my butt when we left the theater. We had dinner after the show and called it an early night because Amanda was running the next morning with her team.

Saturday was somewhat of a wasted day. Amanda went for a run with her group, but I opted to sleep in since my team wasn't going out for a group run. I ended up feeling kind of yucky and groggy on Saturday, so I spent a good part of the day in bed with Tylenol and my heating pad. Saturday was also official 'singlet decorating day' and we enlisted our mothers' help to make our singlets super cute. I'll post some pictures so you can see the full glory ... but we decked out our singlets with rhinestones, glittered guitars, decks of cards, our names, and a great sticker that said "If found on ground, please drag across finish line." We also decorated our race numbers with plenty of glitter glue, which happens to be one of my favorite craft supplies. We even had cute hair ribbons and Team Challenge face tattoos. If we're not setting world records with the running, we're certainly looking CUTE while we're at it.

Of course, Saturday was also the SEC Championship game between Alabama and Florida, and even in Vegas I couldn't stand to miss football. We watched the game with a big group of people from my team, and although it would have been so much better had we all been drinking heavily and eating chips and dip, it was still a lot of fun.

Saturday night brought the Team Challenge pasta party. It was so much fun ... we all walked into the party through a tunnel of cheerleaders and encouragers, ate some good food, heard some inspirational stories, and did lots of cheering. It was a cool experience to be with all 900 other Team Challenge participants from around the country knowing that together we raised $3.4 million towards the fight against Crohn's and Colitis! The top fundraiser in the country raised $40,000 by himself ... WOW! Talk about dedication! After the pasta party, we had team meetings and got details about the logistics of race day ... and had team gifts/prizes! Our top fundraiser got a great orange/blue Team Challenge snuggie ... how funny! My mentor, Karla, gave me a 'Most Traveled Member' award and it was a really funny toy truck with all the trips I've taken through the course of the season. It was really sweet and Karla was a great mentor!

Amanda and I probably should have just gone to bed after the pasta party and team meetings, because the race was bright and early on Sunday morning, but instead, we went to see Robin Williams! He was performing his stand-up comedy show at the MGM Grand that night, and our parents bought us tickets to go! We missed the first few minutes of his show, but everything else we saw was so funny! He's definitely a vulgar comedian, which is hard to imagine after seeing him as such a funny and normal guy in Mrs. Doubtfire and Patch Adams. To hear some of those jokes and obscenities coming out of his mouth was a little appaling, but we definitely laughed a whole lot! I wouldn't dare repeating most of his jokes, but he was totally worth seeing and kept us in stitches for the whole show.

Sunday morning and the race comes next ... stay tuned!

Lazy Days

I'm a little sad that my season with Team Challenge is over (but anxiously awaiting the next race I do with Team Challenge!) .... BUT I will tell you that I absolutely loved sleeping in and being completely lazy today! We trained for our half marathon from the end of August until the beginning of December. And we met every Saturday morning at 8am to run. I loved it, getting up and getting exercise, hanging out with my teammates, and being active. But I sure loved my day today .... getting to sleep in, stay in my warm apartment, and sit in my pajamas all day long. It's been really cold here in Atlanta, and I'm pretty thankful that the for the majority of our training it was on the warmer side! Of course it was freezing in Vegas during our race, but that was just one day!

I fully intend to keep up with my running and do another half marathon in the next few months (I knew I said I wouldn't get hooked, but I just can't help it!), but I'm glad that if I just maintain my training the hardest part is out of the way already! And while I don't mind running on Saturdays, I fully intend to sleep in and then run! :)

I'll start posting details and pictures from our trip to Vegas in the next few days. I just finally unpacked my bags and got my apartment back into a presentable state, so in due time more updates will come!

I did it!

A week ago at this time I was in Vegas and preparing for the big race! The whole weekend was amazing, and I'll definitely write and fill in later .... but here's a quick picture of me and Jennifer crossing the finish line!

We did it! And it was so fun! And I'm totally preparing for my next race! :)

Guardian Angel

Today was a bitersweet kind of day for a few reasons. I mean ... tomorrow, we leave for Vegas! WOW! I can't believe it's here already. It's been a long journey, but it's also flown by too! I am so excited, although I'm definitely nervous too!

It's all bitersweet, because a year ago today I lost a really good friend. He was such a huge cheerleader in my fight against Crohn's Disease and not a day has gone by in the last year that I haven't thought about Jeremy. I'm so excited about Team Challenge, but I sure wish that JereBear were here to experience this all with us!

When Jeremy first went into the hospital, I remember meeting his mom for the first time and her saying to me, "Oh you're Courtney ... how are you feeling? Jeremy always talked about you and we've been praying for your health." I was just blown away by Jeremy's family and their compassion and and mostly their faith. I knew Jer was a Godly, Christian man and he was definitely one to admire.

This is at the Brewery after Jeremy, Eddie, and Nick's company Christmas party

JereBear, me, Eddie, and Anna

A year ago today, I was sitting outside in the cold on my porch in Knoxville with my best friends. We laughed, we cried, but we all knew that we had the BEST guardian angel in Heaven watching over us. It was two days later, on the 5th, that I had my 2nd relapse of C. Diff and was so sick that I had to miss Jerermy's memorial service.

Jeremy was always the biggest cheerleader for all of our triumphs and struggles. I know that through this training he's been with me, pushing me through. And I know that on Sunday morning, when I wake up at an un-godly hour of the morning to RUN A HALF-MARATHON, he will be cheering me on the loudest of them all. And I know that when I see him again, we'll finally be able to have our birthday dinner date ... except it won't need to be a clear liquid diet date like we had planned .... because we'll both be healed! Love you JereBear!

My Knoxville family at The Biltmore House ... my heart and strength through Crohn's!