DreamBig 2015 - #36 Arizona

State #36 - Phoenix, Arizona
P.F. Chang’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Arizona Half Marathon
Finishers: 11,286

January 16, 2015
Oh it's my half birthday - I am 27.5 years old. Gross. I had been out in San Diego, CA for work and was headed to Arizona that day but not before grabbing lunch with Lauren Kukla Payne who has literally just moved to San Diego a few days ago. We got an early breakfast at Snooze (the best breakfast ever) and caught up about her upcoming baby and all of my races and our lives. The ultimate best part about traveling is meeting up with people from the good old days. So, I went from breakfast to the airport to LAX to PHX (yes, the more you travel the more you memorize airport codes) and I met Bridget and Mama McElroy at the airport and Papa McElroy picked us up. The McElroy Family has been around ever since race #8 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and they are some of my biggest cheerleader. We met Kali McElroy (my bestie and running buddy) and her finance Ryan and our friend Karin at Mexican for dinner where we all caught up and had a grand old time the rest of the night.

January 17, 2015
Kali, Ryan and Karin were actually not in town to see me run but coincidentally were in town for a wedding in Tucson so I had the pleasure of hanging out with the McElroy family all weekend while Kali and the gang head to their wedding. After they left, Bridget and I went on a quick run so she could log some miles for her run tracker for school. It is so fun talking to her about her cross country experience and hear about her goals and mental state when it comes to running. Bridget is 15 but she is a lot like me where she doesn't necessarily desire to be the fastest on the team, but she's never going to quit. We had a lot of fun just chatting and catching up - like the little sister I never had. I decided to let her tag along with me to the race expo since I was sure she had never seen a running event that crazy. It was a Rock N Roll event so I was sure they would have a big showing. We had a lot of fun going to each booth and taking pictures and doing all of the fun things I never do because I'm usually alone.We grabbed smoothies on the way home and then got Italian for dinner before I went to sleep early.

Lego JMac making a cameo front and center

January 18, 2015
Papa McElroy agreed to drop me off bright and early at the start of the race so I got up and had my bagel and got ready before headed to the ASU campus for the beginning of the race. By the way, Arizona is gorgeous and sunny and amazing in the middle of January. Walking through the campus I snap chatted Bryan Pope talking about how ASU was one of the first schools we both got accepted to back in 2006 and probably one of the only schools who offered me some significant money -- maybe because they thought I may actually study and not just party.

I wandered around for a bit and then started trying to get in contact with Mark Zalewski and his girlfriend Marian who I had begged to let me run with them. Mark is a good friend from my Kirkwood High School days who in a million years I would've never thought would run a half marathon. He went to Princeton on a WaterPolo scholarship and was meant for the water - not your typical land animal. His older sister Beth ran cross country with me, but that was my extent of running with the Zalewski Family. But I knew he ran the race last year so I made sure to call him when I was coming to town in the off chance he was running again. I met up with them outside the corral and we got a quick picture for me to send to some high school friends who would be just as shocked as I was he was running the race and off we went!

Dream Team Pre Run

Marian and Mark had run the race several times...and they lived in the area....so they knew the course well. I was just so happy to have company! It was harder for them to deal with knowing where they were and knowing how much further they had to go versus me who was just along for the ride. We saw a lot of cool things like a group of people running with one of those Chinese dragon (if I can figure out how to embed video I will do that later) and a lot of cute dogs. The coolest part of the run was when we ran into the park - can't remember what it was called but there were gorgeous orange rocks on both sides of us and I couldn't stop talking about how pretty they were.

Once we got out of the pretty rocks (done climbing the hill) we were more or less on the homestretch which I had been told was all downhill but that was mildly false. Both Kali and Papa McElroy started calling me right near the finish so I was trying to wrap things up while fielding calls at the same time. We finally crossed over the bridge and made a quick turn to the right and finished going downhill. I sped up a little to let Marian and Mark share their cute little couples moment =) We met up with Marian's mom and sister who both live in town before getting our own group picture.

It was SUCH a treat getting to run with friends and have them be a part of my 50 states story! I can not begin to express how much more memorable the experience is when I have friends by my side!

36 states down - 14 more to go!
#DREAMBIG

Bootlegged some pictures from the race website:

Game Face

Waving...

Still waving...

Just waving to my pretend fans....aka rocks

Waving - and Mark dying...

P.S. - The next day was MLK Day so I was off work and Kali and Ryan were back from Tucson so we went and climbed to the top of Camelback Mountain and then I got attacked by children...no big deal.

Top of CamelBack mountain - Kali open your eyes

The whole Crew - Ryan, Kali (war eagle), Bridget and me!

Playing with Kali's cousin and realizing how easy manipulated I am by sneaky children