CrazyLegs race recap and fun formal events!

I have lots of wonderful news to report. 🙂
I had a wonderfully busy weekend full of friends, running, and shooting like crazy!
Let’s start on Thursday- I went to lunch with my friend and photo mentor, Bill.
He’s been the guy to talk to when I have any camera-equipment (or kayaking or woodworking) related questions. After lunch, we went to visit our friend, Randy, who owns Radio Kaos.
That’s us with my newest cd, Lucero’s Women & Work. I’ll post more about the awesomeness that is Randy later. Hint: he’s WAY better than Pandora at helping me find music I’ll like.
On Thursday night, we headed over just north of town for an engagement shoot with Kim and Mark. They’re two awesome bikers who are adorable together and we had a ton of fun!

Later that night, we went out with our friends, and discovered that Guu’s has Bell’s Two-Hearted!!!!

I spent Friday morning cleaning the house, editing photos, and getting ready for Friday and Saturday’s events. I met with Sarah in the afternoon; she interviewed me for her Entrepreneurship class. Thanks, Sarah! It was great to catch up with you and I’m glad I could answer your questions for class.
I stopped at the grocery store on the way home to get the ingredients for dinner.
Reason #17354892735920 that I love warm weather- outdoor grilling!
We finished dinner just in time to get ready to head over to campus and shoot Soirée Musicale. I love this event- it raises money for scholarships, and it’s near and dear to our hearts since we were once scholarship recipients. 🙂
…our friend, Jeff, came back for a performance during the concert…

After that late night, we went straight to bed. We met Amanda in Plover at 6 am on Saturday to head down to Madison for CrazyLegs.

I had a few friends running the race…

…and the rest of our supporters manned a table with melanoma information and all sorts of goodies from the Melanoma Research Foundation.
About the race itself: I had a blast. It was a cold, rainy morning, but there was so much excitement with the 25,000 runners that I was pretty distracted. It took 25 minutes to cross the start line, but that gave me a chance to get to know the folks around me.

Don’t mind the angled picture of the capital, I was trying to walk and shoot while keeping my phone dry 😉
I started out next to a guy named Kevin. I asked him what time our wave was expecting. I know we put in our anticipated finishing time when we register to help the organizers set the waves correctly, but I forgot what I’d planned on. He reminded me that our wave was for the 10:00 mile people. I smiled, because I must have been feeling pretty relaxed when I set that time. Kevin looked at me and said, “Ten minutes, but I bet you’re going to blow that out of the water, huh?” He was reading my mind. Kevin asked if he could run with me, and of course, I said yes. Once the race started, we continued to chat- and I discovered that this was Kevin’s first race! I wanted to help him have a good experience, so I felt him out and we ended up talking about half of the race. I asked him how he got into running, and that’s when he revealed the kicker. He had a stint put in his heart at the end of October. I was so proud of him for running this race- he said running was a part of his cardiovascular rehabilitation. Absolutely awesome! I helped him maintain an even pace, which ended up with us passing lots of people in the last couple miles. We had a lot of fun weaving around the people who’d drastically slowed down- it was like playing a (polite!) game of catch. We came into the finish together, but he let me finish first, even though I was waving him ahead. 🙂

Congratulations, Kevin! You are one inspirational stranger!

I finished with an official time of 45:42. Since it’s my first 8K, it’s automatically a PR! 🙂

We love you, Rachael. Race 3 of 6, done. Oh, and I saw a giant Bucky. 🙂

After the race, we went to our friend’s apartment to warm up and visit. Ashley, Amanda, Sarah, and Sarah’s mom were there. 🙂 More friends were coming, but Brian and I had to head back to Stevens Point to clean up and get ready for the Rotary Club’s ball in Wausau. We donated our services to this event to help them raise money for new literacy programs. Reading is fun and SO important!

The band, Fat Brass, was pretty awesome! They played a variety of different styles, and it was a fun night. It’d been a while since Brian put on a tux and I put on a dress at the same time. 🙂

Dale was there, too! We got to share a few dances at the end of the night.

Talk about an exhausting day!
This morning, I made Brian some delicious homemade muffins. Giant banana-nut-chocolate-chip muffins. 🙂 I also got to babysit for the ADORABLE baby Halle. I took a few pictures- I’ll post them soon.

I got to play with her while her beautiful momma was rehearsing with Brian’s sax quartet. We went for a walk. Can you find the baby in the bundle of blankets? 🙂

We came home from the walk to hear the quartets’ last tune. I love having live music in my home!

Off to go watch some True Blood with my handsome hubby. 🙂

Miles this year: 222.3