Our First Training Walk

Our adventure began dark and early for the Juggernauts' first training walk, Pat's Run. In order to avoid the traffic that would surely crowd the event, we drove to the nearest light rail station, expecting to hop on and be on our way. Unfortunately, half of the 40,000 people participating in the event had the same idea...and ALL seemed to be @ the closest station to Mesa/Gilbert/Apache Junction and all points East. We didn't have a hard time finding parking but by the time we made it to the train we anticipating riding, the doors were closed. We sat on the next train for 15 minutes waiting for the train to take off. This being our first Pat's Run, we were worried we'd miss the start of the event...we were wrong!

We made it to the stadium with several thousand of our new friends (as you can't help but be friends with people you're so squished in with!) and it was overwhelming! People were everywhere! Once we got into the parking lots, we heard the Star Spangled Banner playing to signify the beginning of the run/walk. On a side note, I love our national anthem and I wish it were played in more venues, including the 3-Day. It provides a moment of reflection to anticipate what's about to happen and be thankful for everything we have.

I digress, we made it to our cattle corral in no time and were ready to start....after the 27 corrals in front of us! Lucky for us, we met up with our pals, Sara and Pablo and their friend and sister. We passed the time in our usual fashion, making jokes and singing songs from Pablo's phone (check out our favorite The World's Most Annoying Song). Some naughty walkers migrated to the joggers corral and were heckled by our corralmates "We better see you running!" or "Get back in the corral!". This cracked us up & we knew it would be a fun day!

Once we started, the jokes kept coming. We always have a fun time with Sablo, they're silly just like us. A little after passing mile 1, we stopped to take a pic across the lake from Sun Devil Stadium.

We broke away from our friends for a little bit to get the feel of how it would be walking and training together. One thing I noticed walking next to Alex is how tall he is! I know, I see him every day and he hadn't grown overnight but I don't think we've walked like that for awhile! We bumped into each other a couple of times (Alex walks close so I have to remember that) but I always say, "You're not walking partners until you run into each other"...I guess it's official!

We passed miles 2 & 3, having fun talking about what's going on in our lives and talking about what we would do in Seattle and how the 3-Day would be. Alex was concerned all of the walking in the 3-Day would be crowded like Pat's Run. I enjoyed describing what it would be like-some challenges and fun parts of the walk.

Mile 4 looped around back to Sun Devil stadium and we met back up with Sablo for a little bit. We grabbed free Jamba Juice for our victory walk into the stadium and I was overwhelmed by how awesome it was to walk through the tunnel and finish on the field!

The 4.2 mile walk was not much of a challenge for us. It was a great time to celebrate Pat Tillman's life and ease into our training season. Alex didn't really want to stretch afterwards...this is something that he will have to learn to keep his body happy while training and completing the 3-Day.

We relaxed on the field a little and went to scope out seats. Luckily, we found a nice couple that took a pic of us to commemorate our first training walk.

The ride back to our car was way better than the one to the stadium. As a treat, we ended the event with breakfast @ Village Inn....judging from our first training walk, the Seattle 3-Day will be a blast!