Saturday, November 17

What an early morning, had to drive to the lake front to meet with the team for a group walk. I finally met Khris, the other individual who is walking the full marathon. It was nice, because we walk at about the same speed, so we can keep each other focused. Today, it was 12 miles. This is the longest training so far. We finished the 12 miles in 3 hours and 10 minutes. That did include some stops on the way for Gatorade and a snack if needed. After the first Gatorade stop, Khris and I started to walk a faster pace and so we got quite a bit ahead of the individuals training for the 1/2 marathon. The 1/2 marathon training was 8 miles.

During this walk, we were able to talk to Team In Training alumni. They will come and walk with us to mentor and keep us motivated. It is always fun to hear about their past marathons and how many they did and what they are training for now.

After finishing the walk, Dan and I traveled to Babcock, Wisconsin, to Jeremiah's Crossing. We were planning on helping with a project on the ranch and learning more skills in training Journey. Before going to the ranch, we traveled to Marshfield to check into the hotel. After checking in, we went to the ranch where Erin and Mackenzie will be joining us. Finally, when we all went back to the hotel, we had everything on a cart and we headed for the elevators. We all got into the first elevator, hit the 3rd floor button, the elevator car did not move. We hit the alarm, no one came. Then we hit the emergency phone button, the alarms and intercom went off and finally someone from the hotel was on the phone. (Of course, I do not like elevators to start with, after being caught in one). Someone suggested we should try to open the doors, so Dan was able to push them open and we found out we never moved. We then proceeded to empty the cart and carry everything up to the 3rd floor. Between 3 of us, it was not too bad, good thing Dan and I checked in earlier. After arriving at our room, to our dismay our room keys did not work. Now, I had to go back to the registration desk to have our keys re-encoded and then back up to the 3rd floor.

Finally, we are getting settled. Erin goes in to the bathroom, sees some tissue in the toilet, so decides to flush it, now we have a plugged toilet and a wet floor. Does the excitement never end?! Well it did and we settled down to feed Mackenzie and get some rest.