Pat Tillman Run 2012

We participated in the Pat Tillman Run again this year. This time Wayne and Austin joined us for the 4.2! It was much harder for me this year than last year for some reason ;) And Larry would never admit it, but I think it was at least a little bit of a challenge for him since he never ran even once to train for this thing!! But of course he was able to just jump out there and go. I have been working on just getting close to being able to even think about running this since 6 weeks after I had Bruce!!



The pre-race happenings were probably the most entertaining part of the race thanks to Bailey and her inability grasp the concept of cardinal directions. My dear mother tried and tried to teach her, but Bailey just never warmed up to the concept. My favorite story was when my mom took Bailey driving out on Germaan Road and said, "Ok now we are going East." Bailey was ok with that until my mom had her do a u-turn. Once the turn was completed mom explained, "Now we are going West." Mom thought for sure that would clear things up for Bailey, but instead Bailey exclaimed, "But we're on the same road! How can we go two different directions on the same road??!!" At that point my mom realized it was hopeless ;) So when Bailey called lost and needing directions to get to Sun Devil Stadium for the race, my mom turned the phone over to Larry and said, "good luck!" Larry, who is always up for a challenge, thought 'how hard can this be?' This is Larry on the phone during our pre-race photo-op, trying to figure out where Bailey was based on what she was seeing and trying to figure out how to get her to the stadium...

...this is Larry almost an hour later still trying to help Bailey grasp the concept. He was at least successful in navigating her to the stadium! My favorite part of this picture is my mom laughing in the background, thankful that someone finally understands her pain!! ;)










We started out as a big group with my mom, Bailey, and Grace. We intended to stay together, but then Wayne wanted to see how fast he could finish so Larry and I ran ahead with him and Austin stayed with Grandma, Bailey, and Grace. I told Wayne he could take the wheel and Larry and I would go his pace, but we couldn't refrain from being backseat drivers! At one point Wayne decided he wanted to take a walking break, but it was at the beginning of a slight downhill so I suggested that we take advantage of the downhill and keep running. Wayne agreed so we kept going. Then as we approached the bottom of the downhill Wayne wanted to take that walk break and Larry said, "no way you have to power up the up hills and just get through it!" Wayne threw his hands up in the air and asked, "So when do we ever walk then?!" Good question!!

We got a good laugh at the last drink stop because Wayne accidentally spilled his drink on himself and one of the volunteers apparently took that as a signal that Wayne wanted to be splashed with water to cool himself down. Accordingly, the volunteer threw an entire cup of water at Wayne and doused him! It was pretty funny :) Larry, Wayne and I crossed the finish line about 50 minutes after we started running and Mom, Bailey, and Grace brought Austin safely across the finish line for us shortly thereafter. We were so proud of our boys for completing the race!

On our way back to our car we spotted Sparky and the boys were the last ones to be able to take a picture with him!

Before we went home we decided to make a pit stop at IHOP and refuel after that run ;) The boys were quite convinced that they were going to starve to death! They talked me in to letting them order off the adult menu because they were SO hungry and they just ran SO far! I agreed even though I wasn't convinced Austin would be able to eat the 4 Cina-stack pancakes he ordered! I tried to talk him into ordering the 2 stack, but he insisted on four!








...and he finished every last bite!!