I’ve had this post written, but not edited till recently.  Sorry for the delay?

This year we went to Vegas for New Years 2009, I might sound like we go somewhere every year for New Years, but that’s not the case….anymore. We might start a tradition to go some place every New Years.

New Years Eve in Vegas was not what we expected and hoped.  Staying at Planet Hollywood(PH) formerly the Aladdin the road between PH and Paris was being setup for Robbie Maddison’s Jump on to and off the Arc de Triumph.  We never actually saw this happen, but instead went to a nice dinner at Bally’s (2 hotels down) at around 8pm.  Walking to Bally’s was difficult because the jump was set to go off at 9pm, but of course didn’t go off till just after 10:30pm.  The streets were pretty crowded at this point and walking to Bally’s was a bitch!  You can see the jump below.

After dinner  around 11:30pm we went back towards our hotel.  The crowd was even more insane and getting through it got pretty dangerous with my 70+ year old parents.  I was pretty concerned but remained calm and assertive.   We were all locked holding hands and my poor 5′ 2″ mother holding Mandy’s hand through the crowd was pretty nerve wrecking.  Once we got to a ’safe’ less crowded area we waited for midnight to hit, to watch all the amazing fireworks from the strip.  Little did we know that the fireworks were not shot off the roofs of hotels because of fire hazards and now shot off parking garages, and because of Vegas’ beautiful tall building we didn’t see shit for fireworks!  We were all extremely disappointed and should have done better research or gone to the Palms and paid a lot of money to watch the fireworks from one of their clubs at the top of the hotel.  We decided after our disappointment to go back to our hotel room and drink it off.  That was a much better idea and much more fun.  Walking back to our room got even more dangerous because people were ready to leave the crowd and go wherever.  People started pushing and I never expected to get squished like I did to some stranger.  It was absolutely insane how nasty people got.  Maybe since I’m older I expected more respect, but people’s drunkenness made for some dangerous situations.  I remember going to Mardi Gras and we did the hold everyone’s hand and don’t let go, and I know why we did that here.  I also remember Critchet going to NYC for New Year’s Eve and telling me the same thing.  Going to one of those big cities for New Years Eve can get dangerous fast.  Especially with alcohol involved.    It was a night to remember and never forget.  Next year we’re gonna be on some private beach where no one’s around, obnoxiously drunk (except us) and being disrespectful.  I should have expected this, but we definitely had a different mind set.

Also over by Treasure Island Robbie Knieval jumped ‘over’ the Volcano. Again we never saw this, but here’s the video.

Over the course of 6 months, I have watched and supported her run the Nona 5k, OUC Half, Jacksonville Half and now the Disney Marathon.  I have a whole new respect for the running culture and the dedication involved.  Luckily she had an amazing and dedicated running partner Jennifer Thompson.  Jennifer motivated Mandy and Mandy motivated her, they are a strong team and both first time marathon runners!

So, this weekend was the Disney Marathon and I wanted to tell you a little about my side of this Sunday’s experience.  I’ve already told you about details from other races.   Sunday was the big race, and Mandy had been staying with Team Burnam since Friday over in the Disney Area.  I had the house to myself to prepare for whatever came, with Saturday cleaning the house top to bottom; bathrooms, vacuuming, mopping, cleaning the kitchen, unloading dishwasher, cleaning dog slobber from windows AND washing the dogs, vacuuming and washing two cars by hand, taking down Christmas decorations, grocery shopping, and buying lots of flowers for Mandy’s homecoming!  It was a hell of a day with little sleep the night before.  That Saturday I also went to the Office Max to buy some poster boards for funny signs for the race.  I didn’t want Mandy to come home to a messy house not that she would have cared because of how tired she was.

Race day came and I was up by 5:15am.   Not as early as Gavin and Dawn whom watched the runners take off, which I’m sure is really awe inspiring.  I picked up David (Jennifer’s husband) at his house and we were on Disney property by 6:20am.  We were fairly prepared packed with our signs, towels and water for the girls, Publix chicken wings as a snack, cameras, and a map.

The shotgun was at 5:50am and they left in three large groups.   There were over 21,000 runners and first place was Brazilian Adriano Bastos finishing in 2:20:38.  Mandy and Jenn were in the third group and were quite frustrated at the slow place of the start.  I was told most people were walking because it was so congested.  They first entered into Epcot and looped around back out of the park to mile 4.  Dave and I were shooting to meet them at mile 4 but were concerned when we had to park at the Transportation and Ticket Center and take the monorail to Epcot.  After arriving at Epcot and seeing the mobs of people we decided to skip mile 4 and wait for the girls at mile 9 back at Transportation and Ticket Center.  We still debate if we could have seen them at mile 4, but the number of people was overwhelming and we wanted to be sure we saw them at mile 9.  Ironically Jenn had her cell phone on her and as we were driving up she was on the phone with Dave (this was where she was walking at the beginning).  We were able to communicate easily with her via text messages and that made things so much better!!  We were also tracking the girls based on what they have run in the past, and via a text messaging service Disney was providing that was tracked via their ChampionChip (although the text was delayed about 10-20 minutes, but it helped us judge mile average.

Our first text was directly form Jenn saying she was passing mile 6.  We patiently waited at mile 9, setup camp on the less crowded side and started holding our signs, supporting all the other runners passing by and getting lots of laughs and comments.  Here we saw the first pace setter setting a 5 hour pace, then the 5:30 pace (this will be important later).  So Dave’s first sign is the one pictured below, we got a few comments like, “Aww that’s not nice,” and “Can I buy the medal off you?”

Dave’s first sign

Then we spotted Jenn, she stopped had a full conversation with us, and flexed her muscles.  Later came Mandy and I was so excited to see her that I forgot to take photos or video.

I held this sign below, I got comments from, “that’s the best sign yet,” to, “you’re totally right.”

Zeus’ first sign

After seeing the girls at mile 9, we walked over to mile 12 in front of the Polynesian Hotel.  We patiently waited for the girls with our next set of signs:

Dave’s next sign

Zeus’ next sign

From here we decided to go to somewhere between mile 15 and 25.  We found the best spot in front of Disney Hollywood Studios between mile 23 and 24.  Here we had a good time frame of when Jenn would be here, but didn’t expect to wait for so long for Mandy, which we later found out after mile 13 started to have major pain on her right knee (she walked every water station and even had to glide her feet cause of the rubbing from her special socks.   This next sign was one we came up with last minute.  I got a couple comments saying, “So True!” and  “You’re very right!”

Zeus’ last sign

AND the best sign and the one with the most comments and laughs!  The comments here were non stop!  Mostly were, “You better not be lying.” With our response, “Would we lie to you?”  We also got, “Really?”  and then they would run faster.  We started adding our own comments like, “Mickey & Minnie are serving Ice Cold Beer!”  It was really funny and you can see some more comments from the video below.

Dave’s last sign

Our dirtiest sign, which was never used because we didn’t want to offend anyone and (I heard from Mandy and Jenn that this happens on long races, and they did smell something poo-ish Sunday).

Was never used.

Video Responses from our Free Beer Sign:

Video Montage of Mandy finishing and photos.

This was an incredible event, and extremely emotional, the energy throughout the race of people cheering runners on and runners pushing themselves was incredible.  It was very touching to have anyone and cheer on runners throughout the race.  I want to say I’m so proud of the girls and accomplishing such a challenging task.  I also want to thank people for donating.  Brian Hess especially!!

Mandy after a 21.2mile run taking an ice bath

I never understood the desire of running a marathon (maybe for health reasons?).  I just thought you would train for a few months, then get to the marathon and pace yourself and keep pushing yourself and that’s it.  It’s much more than that…

Mandy’s been training for her January 11th Disney Marthon since around the end of July.  The time training, ice baths, the money spent on shoes; equipment, clothes,  and power packs for her long runs has been fascinating.  She first started to run 2-5 mile runs a couple times a week and once a week she would have a long run.  Her first long run was 8 miles, second was 10, third was 16, and now she’s up to 21.2.  These runs occur anywhere between 5am-7am in the morning (the longer the run the earlier the start).  I watched her first official 5k, which is a short but still hard 3.1 miles.

Saturday she ran her first official Half-Marathon at the OUC Half.  I never imagined it was that hard till you see your wife, her friend and many others struggle to stay on pace.  I have a whole new respect and understanding of how hard you push your body to it’s absolute limits.

Friday night before the OUC Half we watched Spirit of the Marathon.  A documentary recommended to us that follows 5 marathoners from first timers to Olympic Champion runners.  You’re moved at why these people do it, be it just to finish, or to finish and beat your last time at the age of 65.  It’s unbelievable the struggle you go through to accomplish such a challenging goal.  That really pumped me up for supporting Mandy at the OUC Half.

Mandy and Jen on their first 21.2 mile long run.

At the race, I wanted to cheer Mandy on at least 4 places.  I was able to do so, and the last few places I saw her pass I ran from one place in the course to another via shortcuts (that was hard in itself and I was thinking how can these people run this long!?!?)!  As some of you know I can be pretty loud, and I wasn’t just cheering on the wife, I was cheering on everyone that passed.  I’ve never gotten so many thank you’s before and I was glad to be their cheerleader too.

Marathons are fucking hard!  Pushing your body to the ultimate extreme looks like a humbling experience.  I would do it once to experience such a satisfying life long learning experience.  I would also do it to build up such an incredible endurance!

Now I know this Christmas season everyone is asking for money, so I won’t push it but if you could donate a few bucks to Mandy’s cause that would be very honerable of you.  And Team Mandy could use all your support for the race on Sunday, January 11th, at Disney!

Mandy and I lived in my cousin’s apartment right in the middle of one of the greatest cities!  We were there 4 days, and had more than our handful of walking a dog, walking around, and shopping.  It was quite an adventure being in a small apartment with over sized furniture and a 6 month old puppy.  It was fun, but definitely a lot of hard work and walking. We had a great time and I really appreciate my cousin letting us stay at his place. It’s an awesome place and he’s got a great dog. It was super fun to be able to walk everywhere and have some really good local food…and pizza! We really had a good time and didn’t do too much site seeing other than go to the famous Apple store and I bought Mandy a Tiffany’s Dragon Fly Pendant.  Also Critchet and his fabulous girlfriend Gina drove up from the D.C. area to hang out and visit with us!  We had one hell of night on the town Thursday Night.

Julia Roberts Intro

Burnin Down the House!

Sledgehammer!

So Damn Lucky!

Full First Dance Video so no one forgets:

And a behind the scenes look of us practicing! God I miss my wife!!!