Rock-N-Roll New Orleans Half Marathon Part 2

American Cancer Society DetermiNation Decorating Party and Pasta Dinner

Check out Rock-N-Roll New Orleans Half Marathon Part 1 -
The Expo

Before I get on with this post, I need to say that Heather reminded me of a few pictures I missed on my last blog post!

Before we made our way to the Expo, we took a few obligatory pictures in front of the fountain of our hotel!

 

We tried to get Bobby and Jason to re-enact their photo from last year but they wouldn’t cooperate!

Ok on with this blog post…..

We made the 10/15 minute walk from our hotel to the Astor Hotel for the ACS DetermiNation events.  On the way, we decided that the “boot memo” must have been sent out today because it seemed as if EVERYONE was in boots! :0)

In no time, we were at the Astor Hotel thanks to the GPS on my iPhone! :0)

Inside, we were greeted with DetermiNation signs everywhere!

We made our way upstairs and met up with our Southwest ACS team. 

They had PLENTY of stuff to decorate our race shirts with! 

Katie our Team Captain purchased felt iron on letters for each of us to wear on our shirts!  I was deemed team co-captain because out of the five on our team, I was the first one to run a Marathon.  I was also given the title “Coach K”!  Hah!

 

Getting it just right!!

 

Our shirts looking race-ready!!!

This guy welcomed us, then had us all stand and give the reason we were there.  I stood up and told the story of my grandfather passing away from Lung Cancer and how I wanted to fight back in more ways other than just on a professional level.

After the decorating party, we were ushered through a line of hooping, hollering, cheering DetermiNation volunteers.  They also had cowbells so they made quite a racket!  It. Was. Amazing!

My brother and sister-in-law Kayla were there to support me as well! 

Throughout the night, they played a slideshow of pictures and runners stories.

I made the big screen twice!

 

Yes, I’m obsessed with this picture. :0)

I also made a centerpiece!  Teehee!

    

Some race stories were touching, some made me smile…it was a very well put together program!

Yummy food!

Quite a few speakers were lined up for the evening including  someone from the Competitor Group (they put on the Rock and Roll Series)!

 

After all the top teams/top fundraisers were announced, we were dismissed.  Instead of going straight to our hotel, we took a detour to the Best Western to meet up with my running group!

We were intently listening to our running coach!

As you can see, pretty much everyone was facing towards our direction.  Well, my brother kept holding up my “GO KAREN” DetermiNation sign.  Oh. My. Gosh. I wanted to hurt him!  Not a happy camper!

My running group! :0)

Here’s my “GO KAREN” DetermiNation sign!

The No Parking signs were up and ready for race day!

Ok so here’s my funny story for the day!  On the way back to our hotel, Kayla and I were walking in front of Jason and Brian.  Jason had my “GO KAREN” sign.  Well, we passed Harrah’s and a HUGE group of people were walking towards us.  Jason (without me knowing) held up my sign above his head and started waving it around in the air.  The group walking towards us started cheering, clapping, and yelling “GO KAREN Woohoo”!  I turned around and realized what Jason was doing so I hurried and took the sign from him.  My embarrassment only encouraged the group even further.  It was mortifying.  Really, it was.

This is only a re-enactment of what I did with the sign!  Hehe!

We made it back to our hotel in one piece and went to bed!  I can’t tell you the last time I was in bed by 9:30 p.m. on a race night!  It was AWESOME!  Heather and Bobby didn’t have the best night sleep between Jason’s snoring and my talking in my sleep…sorry again, guys! :0)

Up next:  Race Day!  Stay tuned! :0)