The Whole Gang’s Here—Saturday Night…
Vardo and I had decided to do a group dinner for our friends and family as we had several people overlapping between her crew and mine. She got reservations for all 24 of us at Bellini, which is where the DM crew dined during their IM training weekend in June. It’s a fantastic Italian restaurant set in an old Lutheran church—seemed very appropriate from that angle, too—and so our group converged on the restaurant at 5 pm (way earlier than I normally eat, but hey—nothing about the weekend was normal). Turns out the restaurant opened at 5, so those of us who showed up a few minutes early ended up chatting along the street in front of the restaurant and in Theresa’s minivan, where she cracked open the yummy oatmeal chocolate chip cookies she baked for my post-race treats. As people showed up, there were a lot of hugs and introductions, and we all swarmed the restaurant when the doors opened.
The introductions piece was very very odd—here, in one place, were so many people who mean so much to me, and it was almost surreal to think that most of them had not met each other. I kept thinking that it must be like what a bride or groom goes through at a wedding—people from different facets of one’s life in the same place for the first time for a common reason. It was very cool to have everyone there—I know Vardo felt the same—and the whole evening will go down as one of the best in my life.
As people sat and got situated, we kept talking—to the point where the table that was primarily my crew ended up ordering well after the table that was largely Vardo’s crew—oops. Steph and Jenny showed up about 20 minutes after we did—they walked in holding the signs that Steph had made, which were day-glo green and involved flying pigs. After hugging them and finding Steph a restroom (she was 8 months pregnant, after all), the two of them gave me a very cool gift—a silver charm bracelet with a swimmer, biker, and runner on it. An awesome gift from two awesome friends…
With everyone finally at the restaurant and sort of settled in, we toasted to Catherine and Josh’s anniversary, ordered and eventually got around to eating. The food, for the record, was fantastic—I went very boring and got the penne Bolognese, but I heard from others that their meals were equally yummy. But, even better than the food was the conversation—again, something I’ll never forget.
The most random part of the evening came when another DM group came in and Kristie realized that the coach for a number of people in the group is actually a woman we both knew from college. We hugged, caught up briefly, and took a quick snapshot—very random, but it was also cool to know that I now had two additional supporters (Jenny and her fiancé) along the course the following day.
Before people started taking off, Vardo and I distributed our official fan club uniform—yellow Iowa State t-shirts. We had originally talked about getting custom shirts made, but time got short and it was so low on the priority list that neither of us thought any more about it until Vardo suggested we go the Iowa State route instead. It worked well—plus we had the added bonus of basically forcing non-Iowa Staters to sport our colors (Vardo’s aunt and uncle are Texas fans, my brother-in-law is a Jayhawk, and most of the rest of my crew are non-Iowa Staters, too).
Dinner finally broke up around 7 or so, and people started to take off in their own directions. I prepped my Sherpa crew (Steph, Jenny, and Theresa) on what I needed them to help me with on Sunday and gave Jenny my gear claim ticket—one last thing I had to worry about. My mom was already tearing up by that point—a bit unnerving for me considering everything that would transpire on Sunday. After getting lots of good luck wishes and hugs, I took off for the hotel with Theresa, who came prepared with cookies and banana bread for post-race nourishment and had the collection of notes from my friends and family that I was to pack in my run special needs bag to read if I hit rough patches along the way. Vardo once again opted for ice cream, so she headed to State Street for some Ben and Jerry’s.
I’m glad that, even with the chaos of the weekend, Theresa and I could chat a bit Saturday night—she, more than anyone else, saw the good, bad, and ugly of the whole training thing and helped me maintain my sanity during the whole thing, so I was glad to have a few moments to talk things through with her and get one last sanity check before I called it a day. After she left, I went back to double-checking my special needs stuff and my swim gear, and, when Vardo got back to the room, we both mixed our nutrition for the bike, then called it a night and attempted to sleep.
The introductions piece was very very odd—here, in one place, were so many people who mean so much to me, and it was almost surreal to think that most of them had not met each other. I kept thinking that it must be like what a bride or groom goes through at a wedding—people from different facets of one’s life in the same place for the first time for a common reason. It was very cool to have everyone there—I know Vardo felt the same—and the whole evening will go down as one of the best in my life.
As people sat and got situated, we kept talking—to the point where the table that was primarily my crew ended up ordering well after the table that was largely Vardo’s crew—oops. Steph and Jenny showed up about 20 minutes after we did—they walked in holding the signs that Steph had made, which were day-glo green and involved flying pigs. After hugging them and finding Steph a restroom (she was 8 months pregnant, after all), the two of them gave me a very cool gift—a silver charm bracelet with a swimmer, biker, and runner on it. An awesome gift from two awesome friends…
With everyone finally at the restaurant and sort of settled in, we toasted to Catherine and Josh’s anniversary, ordered and eventually got around to eating. The food, for the record, was fantastic—I went very boring and got the penne Bolognese, but I heard from others that their meals were equally yummy. But, even better than the food was the conversation—again, something I’ll never forget.
The most random part of the evening came when another DM group came in and Kristie realized that the coach for a number of people in the group is actually a woman we both knew from college. We hugged, caught up briefly, and took a quick snapshot—very random, but it was also cool to know that I now had two additional supporters (Jenny and her fiancé) along the course the following day.
Before people started taking off, Vardo and I distributed our official fan club uniform—yellow Iowa State t-shirts. We had originally talked about getting custom shirts made, but time got short and it was so low on the priority list that neither of us thought any more about it until Vardo suggested we go the Iowa State route instead. It worked well—plus we had the added bonus of basically forcing non-Iowa Staters to sport our colors (Vardo’s aunt and uncle are Texas fans, my brother-in-law is a Jayhawk, and most of the rest of my crew are non-Iowa Staters, too).
Dinner finally broke up around 7 or so, and people started to take off in their own directions. I prepped my Sherpa crew (Steph, Jenny, and Theresa) on what I needed them to help me with on Sunday and gave Jenny my gear claim ticket—one last thing I had to worry about. My mom was already tearing up by that point—a bit unnerving for me considering everything that would transpire on Sunday. After getting lots of good luck wishes and hugs, I took off for the hotel with Theresa, who came prepared with cookies and banana bread for post-race nourishment and had the collection of notes from my friends and family that I was to pack in my run special needs bag to read if I hit rough patches along the way. Vardo once again opted for ice cream, so she headed to State Street for some Ben and Jerry’s.
I’m glad that, even with the chaos of the weekend, Theresa and I could chat a bit Saturday night—she, more than anyone else, saw the good, bad, and ugly of the whole training thing and helped me maintain my sanity during the whole thing, so I was glad to have a few moments to talk things through with her and get one last sanity check before I called it a day. After she left, I went back to double-checking my special needs stuff and my swim gear, and, when Vardo got back to the room, we both mixed our nutrition for the bike, then called it a night and attempted to sleep.
posted by roehr @ 1:31 PM
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