Organizer?!

Of course that best friend of mine (Julia),  decided to just go out and run 13.1 miles. That means I had a volunteer job to be done. Today was the 14th annual Gobbler Grind! Julia's second annual! (Also, Gobbler Grind was my very first cheerleader race for Julia too!) So don't get me wrong, this isn't my first rodeo as a volunteer so I would consider myself pretty much in the groove of what there should be and what there shouldn't be.

Let's go back, let's go back *Dane Cook voice* on November 1st I emailed to volunteer. Although, I never received anything back. I was slightly concerned, I emailed again November 10th ya know since the race is in less then 2 weeks. Well finally they email me back November 12, saying they would love for me to volunteer. So they informed me they are doing packet pick up on Saturday. So knowing I wanted to be there for Julia and her sister Em when they crossed the finish line. I volunteered for packet pick up, so the lady emails me back saying I will have to be at the hotel from 11am-6pm for packet pick up, and if I could  be at the race at 6am Sunday for late packet pick up!  Holy Volunteer Time!

Yesterday yup my glorious day off I get to wake up at the same ole time and head out to KS for packet pick up! I get there (10:40am), there's a bunch of old ladies walking around and the Road ID guy (Josh). I ask where I should be and what I should be working on. Basically I thought I was talking to myself, Josh kindly told me that he has a job for me. Except he needs to find out where they put the timing chips. Go figure, no elder lady remembers signing for 3 giant boxes of timing chips. In my mind I'm thinking WTF, how do you NOT know where the timing chips are that's the most important part of a race!! For the next 40 minutes, we are still on the hunt for timing chips! LORD! Finally Josh comes back with boxes, the coordinator had them sent to the hotel and forgot they were in the closet! So around 11:20 we finally have chips, and it's time to match up the bib numbers with chip numbers. Well let's remind you, that there are 2,500 people registered for this race. Well none of the old ladies would help us! I mean why wouldn't they just stand and look at us 4 younger volunteers try to stuff as fast as our hands allow us. Cause guess what, packet pick up begins at NOON! Needless to say, we didn't get them all stuffed in time, people where bitching, volunteers were frantic. Then there's me, that's saying calm down! Racers can wait to ensure we get it done correctly! Eventually I had to leave the half marathon table, one of the volunteers was too high strung for me!! Once I moved over to the t-shirt table with 2 HS boys volunteer, my life was much more calm and I felt more at home. The boys and I did fight like brothers and sister, and racers did ask us if we were siblings. Even if one of the boys is a foreign exchange student from the UK with the thickest British accent I've heard, ohhh and he informed me that "you don't mow the grass".... "you mow the Garden." Oh how I learned a thing or 2 from those boys, and they made my day go by FAST! Although with the lack of organization, I didn't leave the hotel till 6:30pm STARVING!

Being at the course at 6am, wasn't going to happen especially after the long day I had yesterday. Although I did get at the course at 7am helped with getting the rest of the late pick up people!  I went over and decided I would do some chip cutting while the 5k runners were coming in. I knew that Julia's time is she'd be coming to the finish at 2 hours and 30 minutes! So chip clipping it is. Let's first start off with holy 5k cluster fuck! They basically had the 5ker's running in circles, many got frustrated and quit. After our very last wonderful 5ker, who I've seen her at many many races. I moved everything over so the half and full marathoners wouldn't get confused. WRONGO! For some odd reason rather then having one set of timing mats, (Blue mats) there were too! So many people just stopped running at the first set of mats. So I was stand shortly after the first set of mats telling runners they weren't done! From there I went over and started handing out water and gatorade, we had just got our big rush of 2 hour runners! Guess what! NO water and they guy said he was on his way back with it. Yeah there were many angry runners. I mean I was angry for the runners! I then left since there was no water, went back to steer runners in the right direction and wait for Julia and Em!! I saw Lo, Goliath and Julia's Momma so I knew they were coming close! (On a side note, G was so excited to see me! His Dad kept yelling at him, but I secretly miss G just as much!!) The girls made it! Looking amazing!

Well done ladies!

Of course a race tradition for Julia, no matter if we race or volunteer we always head to First Watch for Breakfast! Duh It's a MUST! Julia's race buddy Scott joined us at First Watch so we were talking about what needs to change at the race to make it better for me the volunteer and them the runners!

I decided that when I got home, I would email and offer to also be a organizer for the Gobbler Grind next year!! Now since it took them almost 2 weeks to reply on me being a volunteer, will they even take the time to take up suggestions to have me help as an organizer! After this disaster of a race, I also emailed the coordinator for the Oz Marathon that Julia is doing April 16!! So if I become an organizer on the Oz Marathon, who wants to be a fellow volunteer!!

Hahaha! I felt Hyperlink HAPPY today!

Since my knee no longer allows me to join in running!
We will still have "race" pictures!

Bike Extravaganza

Alight, so yeah a few posts down I wrote about how I wanted to "become a runner." What I did fail to tell you all, is when I was 15 I dislocated my left knee cap walking around the kitchen table. Holy PAIN! Yeah I have no cool story of why I had to have a full leg cast for 2 months. Needless to say, after x-rays they decided to tell me that my knees are genetically incorrect and most likely with in the next 15 years I'll need a replacement. Lovely right. So needless to say I was scared to exercise or push myself. I didn't want back in that pain. Then April 2008, my brothers wedding many vodka and sprites and dancing my life away.. Out goes my knee again. Lucky for me I was drunk enough that the pain wasn't as bad, I refused to go back to the doctor. All they were going to do is put me in a cast. If I had a cast again, I can't drive. Which means I will become a couch potato, more then I already was.

So when I started weight watchers in June 2009, I did start exercising although now I can tell when I feel the knee cap moving. So yup my crazy ass decides that I'm going to run. Well I had yet to run my 5k's. So this last month and a half I've been doing C25k training. Welp the last 2 runs, my knee has basically told me to go fuck myself. I even tried to run in my knee brace, go figure it hurt it worse.

So I was talking with Kyle, that I want to start bike riding. Now I've switched gears I wanna be a biker. So I found this sweet pink bike, and sweet helmet and the penny savings begins. Although funny thing has it, in Nov 2007 I won a bike. Yeah the only thing in life I've won, was a bike and I was a couch potato. I rode it maybe 10 miles MAX when I won it. Although I call it the "big bike" because my short ass legs barely touch. So I always rolled my eyes at the big bike.

Well Tuesday my coworker and I were talking about my pink bike and everything I want to do with it. I told him I have a bike but it's too big for me. It's some fancy smancy bike I won. So he asked to see it and was interested in buying it. Sweet if I sell the big bike..... I can get the pink bike! Yes! Sweet! So Kyle went and got my big bike new tubes for the tires and brought it up. Well the bike is a bit nicer then what my coworker wanted, and we found out it's worth $500! For a bike I've just been looking at!

Tuesday night I go home to and I'm talking with my parents about my new determined goal in life. To ride a bike. Well Dad busted out laughing, saying "Megan, you couldn't ride a bike worth a damn when you were little." Okay, Okay. I'll be completely honest yeah when I was younger I was complete fat ass. I did nothing that required movement. So after talking with mom and dad. may jokes about me on a bike. Mom thought it was probably a good idea I get back on a bike and ride before going to spend $300 on a bike and use it once.

Alright, Alright. So yesterday I came into work walked into my cube to see the bike. Well I then decided I'll run up to the bike shop and get me an ugly helmet and start riding during my lunch around the back roads. I come back, get all suited up to ride. Making sure I tell the boys I'm off to ride so if I don't come back in an hour, please look on the side of the road for me!

Off I go. Hmmp. This damn fancy smancy big bike... I don't understand all these gears or what gears I need to be in. I just keep pedaling and pressing buttons to try and make it easier. Well up some hills it wasn't easy, so I walked with my bike. Then I found an apartment complex, so I was circling in their parking lot. Well as I was trying to get back on the road. Off I fall of the bike. Of course, there were 3 guys mowing the complex and all the mowers stop as I fall. I slowly get up, walk with the bike again and climb back on. (Thank God I was wearing jeans. No blood.)

To be completely bluntly honest. This whole bike riding kicked my ass. I come back in the office covered in sweat, barely able to talk, my whole body is sore. I did burn 255 calories in 35 minutes. But honestly I thought by how I felt, I burnt more then that!  So I'm thinking to myself maybe I'm just the lazy fat ass and always will be.UGH. But I keep telling myself, no your not giving up. You are riding the bike every day during your lunch for 30 minutes. This has to get better. So I'm off to try this whole bike riding again today!

Dream Pink Bike I want!!

Fancy Smancy Big Bike

Currently what my desk looks like! Ha

Ugly ass helmet.
Safety First!

Only 255!

Stay tuned. . .

For a recap of how my very first time back on a bike went.


WHEW

Kitchen Aid completes me

The one thing I look forward to every week. . . is the weekend. Well not for the fact that I hate my job like people normally do. But it gives me time to do the one thing in life I adore, love and have a passion for. BAKING! Whenever I have a bad day or just need to be cheered up, the ole Kitchen Aid mixer can always solve that! As a few posts ago, I spilled my guts about my Grandma' Bonnie, well Grandma had always told me that she thought I'd be an awesome chef or pastry chef. Grandma passed away my sophomore year in High School, so needless to say I stopped cooking, and baking. I was pissed, and bitter Grandma wasn't here to cook or bake with me. Needless to say, when I graduated I went off to school thinking I wanted to become and elementary teacher. I went through almost 2 years of my classes when I realized I couldn't stand being in a class room with kids, that weren't mine. Don't get me wrong I love and adore kids, possibly one day in the future me and the Mr. might have an offspring of our own. So I dropped out of school, which at times I would love to say I regret it. But honestly I don't, it would even upset me more to be stuck in a career I hate and had student loans on a career I hate. 

Since Kyle and I have dated, we have talked about  me going back to school. Although, I have thought and thought long and hard I honestly couldn't think of anything. My dear friend Shelby was talking about going into nursing, asked me to go with her. Except for the fact I can't look at a needle without getting squirmish. So that's a negative. 

I can't tell you how many people in my life have told me I needed to go to school to be a chef or pastry. My response was always "Yeah, that's what my Grandma always wanted too." So recently it dawned on me, I need to go back to school to become a pastry chef. 

Since I'm a big girl, married and just can't make the glorious decisions and say eff it. I now have the joys of a husband, (which I wouldn't trade for anything) 2 car payments, soon to be house payment, and little bitty credit card debt. So I am looking into night classes (so I can still work 40 hours a week) to help me pursue my dream. I would DIE to have my own bakery!! (Of course Julia would be there to make the cuppiecakes with me!) 

I've sent an email to school, lets see what they say! Eeck!

This weekends baking adventures!

Mom wanted cake pops!
Of course I am an awesome daughter and made some

Butter dinner rolls

Ooey Gooey Cinnamon Rolls

Home made Hamburger and Hot dog buns
for Dad's tailgating!

My life story. . .in a shoe

Well, of course you guys as my readers. . . Know that I adore TOMS and support them as much as my paycheck allows me to . (Well or my husband) Of course I've been debating in my head over the new corduroy TOMS. I mean, it's becoming winter, I do need shoes right?!

Also, you all know how much I'm obsessed with Staches. I mean who else has stache friday at the office!

Well yesterday, I received an email from TOMS. The new Movember (November) special shoes. So of course I opened. I have never laughed so hard in my life. Luckily I had already peed 3 minutes before, or I might have pissed myself.

This my friends are Movembers shoes. . . . .

TOMS - Movember Limited Edition!

Hell YES! TOMS with staches! These might possibly be a must in my life. (I'm still working on the MR.) Although maybe I should start a Stache fund!!!