02/08/09 Melbourne Florida Marathon & Mom's Birthday!

The innaugural Melbourne Music Marathon was 2/8/09, and more importantly, so was my mom's birthday!

The course was made up of two laps around a 13.1 mile loop. It was mostly flat except for two bridges over the water, which each had to be done twice. Every few miles, we were treated to some musical entertainment.

It was so great to see Mom at the halfway point!

I can't remember if this was the first lap or the second... But it was so great to have Lorenzo keep me company and more importantly, he kept me smiling!


Mom and Grandma cheering at the finish made me feel like I could run the whole thing all over again!

I was shocked to see my results!

Due to the fact that this was the first year of this marathon, the organizers seemed a bit unorganized at the awards ceremony. We had to wait over an hour, but it was worth it to receive my first gold medal!

Marathon Results

The next day, we took our Couchsurfing host Rhonda to the rock climbing gym in Melbourne.

Then Lorenzo and I drove down to Key Largo.

John Pennekamp state park.

Feeding the tarpon.

Then it was back to Cocoa Beach to spend more time with Mom and Grandma. This is their "backyard" - the Atlantic Ocean.



Thanks to Grandma and Mom for all the homemade meatballs and lasagna!

11/02/08 Muddy Buddy!

I've always wondered if "friendly competition" actually exists. So Lorenzo and myself reunited as Team Run Zola Run to compete against our friends Kevin & Aaron in the Muddy Buddy Race.

This event requires teams of two people to trade off between running and riding a bicycle, just one bicycle per team. So if this is something that you are interested in doing, make sure you pick a team-mate whose seat height is within the same stratosphere as yours. After consulting with several other friends who have participated in this event, we were repeatedly warned that it would be difficult to find our bike in the transition areas so I decided to decorate it with a sparkly wrap (as in gift, not gangsta).

We were also repeatedly warned that we should expect to get quite muddy. The last portion of the event requires both team members to jointly cross a mud pit on hands and knees to the finish line. Fortunately for you, the reader, our "friends" Aaron & Kevin beat us quite handily so Aaron had plenty of time to capture these muddy moments. If you look closely, you can see a very large quantity of mud backfiring directly up my nose.

Keeping true to the "friendly" part of the competition, here is where I most humbly post Aaron's victory video.



L.A. Muddy Buddy - 2008 from Aaron Price on Vimeo.

Thanks to my "friends" for showing me that competition can be friendly and fun! We gladly toasted "Here's to no more mud in our eyes!"

10/04/08 Femmoto!

Dear Men,
I'm sorry you didn't get a chance to ride motorcycles on the Las Vegas Motor Speedway this weekend. But Femmoto is a women only motorcycle event in Las Vegas where the ladies get a chance to try out new factory motorcycles on a track. Although Laura, Robyn and myself certainly wished that a select few of your species had accompanied us to this event, the temptation it might have caused would have bordered on being unbearable, like being at a Victoria's Secret Clearance sale with a maxed out credit card. Prohibiting your testosterone-fueled desire to ride these magnificent machines would've caused momentary musings of gender reassignment surgery...
The freedom we women got to experience while riding the track without trying to impress you allowed us to simply enjoy ourselves and feel at ease with our fellow female riders. If you've ever taken off your bra at the end of a really hot summer day, you'd know what I mean, oh nevermind.
If you are still reading this, you are probably starting to think that I'm talking too much, so I'll share a few photos with you. The fact that the latest copy of "Performance Bikes" magazine had fewer words than pictures reminds me of how "visual" you are.


Normally I'm not the kind of girl that likes to hang out with a lot of girls for an entire day, but Femmoto wasn't just a bunch of us talking about nails or make-up. In fact there were a lot of what I like to refer to as "non-make-up-moments" as in it's a good thing I wasn't wearing make-up because it would've been smeared all the way to the back of my head right now. In particular, riding on the back with Ducati racer Larry Pelgram was more thrilling than combining every roller coaster I have ever been on - even the ones that made me throw up.

So in conclusion, I am sorry that you weren't there. But at the same time, I'm also relieved that you weren't because I'm pretty certain that this opportunity would've been too much for your testosterone-induced yearning to wreak havoc.

Okay, I'm done speaking. You can go back to "reading" your motorcycle magazines now!

And remember, if dinner isn't on the table next October, it's probably because she's at Femmoto!

Sincerely,

Angela Brunson, just one of the many Women of Femmoto

09/28/08 Toronto Marathon

Angela & Coach John after her 25th marathon!

Thursday, September 25

Coach John, Mom and I arrived in Toronto. We met our Couch Surfing host Oliver who welcomed us into his downtown apartment. Great view!

Friday, September 26
On Friday, Mom and I set out with a plan to see certain parts of the city but that quickly changed as we found ourselves wandering into so many interesting stores. When we bumped into the Hockey Hall of Fame, we knew the agenda would be significantly altered!

Afterwards, we took a ferry and explored Wards Island.
And a trip to Toronto would not be complete without a visit up to the CN Tower - the world's tallest structure!

Saturday, September 27
On Saturday, we went to the Marathon Expo where we feasted on carbs, juices and indulged in some pre-race massage.

Sunday, September 28

The race was Sunday. I was still suffering the late stages of a sinus infection and jet-lag. It rained Saturday night and there was a chance of rain during the race, but luckily the weather wasn't as bad as we feared. Clean air, humid overcast skies at first, then by 11:00am, it actually got pretty warm. Temperatures ranged from 60 degrees F at the start, but got up past 70 before most of us finished.

The best part about the event was that Coach John rode a borrowed bike along the course with me so he could get some great photos, and keep me in good spirits. About an hour into the race, he called Lorenzo and let me talk to him on speaker phone! One other great bit was the highly organized start corral system with really high fences so no one could jump into a starting area in which they didn't belong. Two not so great things: 1) pretty dreadful music from the few live bands - a country music band crooned slow depressing ballad, then just before "the wall" we were treated to some sleepy "Kumbiyah" folk music... not exactly the kind up stuff to keep the "pep in your step" - but the African drummers near the finish were brilliant; 2) the entire course was marked ONLY in kilometres. At first it was nice not to worry about whether I was on or off pace, but eventually the impatient 5 year old in me wanted to know "how much fuuurtherrr?" And no matter how hard I tried, my almost 40 year old mathematically challenged brain could absolutely not compute the conversion. Finally, I remembered that a marathon was about 42Km and I took a lucky guess around marker 37Km that I had 5Km left. All I know is that the half way point was marked and it took me 1:40 for the first half, then 1:44 for the second - total time was 3:25:16 which was good enough for 5th place in my division.

The race organizers wisely offered participants the option to pre-pay for a post-race massage during the registration process. Best investment ever!

Monday, September 29

The day after the race, Mom and I enjoyed some spectacular flowers at the Allen Gardens, and a delicious lunch at Crepe It Up!

That night, Coach John joined us at the Air Canada Centre to watch a fantastic hockey game where the St. Louis Blues played the Toronto Maple Leafs. Even though it was only pre-season, the fans were really into it - everyone did the wave and cheered like crazy! The score was tied 3-3 at the end of regulation. Same score after overtime, so then it went to a really exciting shoot-out! Toronto won!!!

Tuesday, September 30

As we boarded our planes on Tuesday, the city bid us a tearful (rainy) good-bye. But I'm having thoughts of returning next year perhaps for the ENDURrun.