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50 Crazy Things in my 50th Year – Thing #8 – Walk above the water

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The suspension bridge leading into the Whitehorn campsite

The suspension bridge leading into the Whitehorn campsite

 Bridges

This may seem small when compared to the scale of some of my other crazy things but it’s

A sequence of bridges leading to Berg Lake

A sequence of bridges leading to Berg Lake

important to me and I’m very proud of myself for doing it. While the whole Berg Lake Trail was a challenge for me (blog post to come on that), the suspension bridge leading into the Whitehorn campsite was on my radar as a potential challenge I would need to conquer. My thing is, I like the structures beneath my feet to be firm. I don’t like movement and I don’t like the feeling of having to trust whether or not someone did their job right or that the structure I’m walking on may collapse at any minute. Bridges in general are a bit unnatural to me. I guess I watch too many Indiana Jones-typeIMG_9731 movies – you see a skinny bridge, or a suspension bridge, and you know what comes next. It will collapse, the ends will be cut, or burned, and the whole structure will swing with some poor unsuspecting soul on it. Even large bridges, like the Lions Gate Bridge or the Port Mann Bridge in Vancouver, make me a bit nervous. The sounds change when you’re on a bridge. Things become more focused. I notice I hold my breath until I safely reach the end. It’s not a gripping fear that stops me from going places but I’m definitely aware of all bridges and the fact that they are suspended above great cavernous spaces that I have no control over.

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The Berg Lake trail has a number of bridges that made me nervous. Some were only two pieces of 2X6 stretched over a stream, others were wider. Some had two railings and some only one. All of them made me nervous. The fact that I was carrying a heavy pack didn’t make things easier since my raised centre of gravity made me feel less stable than normal, and I don’t feel stable at the best of times. My ankles wobble on narrow surfaces. I don’t have sure footing, and my heart is pounding so hard I need to rest when I get to the other side. Adding a suspension bridge into the mix made it all the more challenging.

Why is this crazy?

I’ve said before that heights aren’t a problem, and they’re not. But there’s something about bridges that make me very cautious. Where people I know bound effortlessly over them, I pick my way slowly, cautiously, shaking the whole way. Bridges are above nothing. The expanse below is scary and I find them slightly unnatural. Suspension bridges are the worst. Suspension bridges move. They don’t seem to be attached to anything solid. They seem fragile and free thinking – something I don’t like in structures that are supposed to support me. It’s hard to explain why this is crazy. It didn’t make me want to vomit or pass out, but crossing a suspension bridge is definitely not something I have actively sought out… until this year. There will be another one in the fall if all goes well. This is a starter.

Crossing and swinging

As suspension bridges go, this one is probably pretty tame. The sides are chain link fencing, which feels pretty solid. I don’t think the wood pieces you step on are in much danger of falling off and I don’t think the cables holding the bridge are likely to snap…. But… it could happen!

The lack of solid ground felt strange and the fact that the deck of this bridge (not sure what it’s called – the part you

Suspension bridge leading to the Whitehorn campsite

Suspension bridge leading to the Whitehorn campsite

walk on) isn’t even close to level made me very nervous. I think it has about a twenty degree lean which made me question the engineering skills of the person who designed and built it – and that made me question the rest of the structure. We weren’t really high above the water, but the river was moving in rapids and it was hard not to look at it and imagine myself tumbling down into the white foam.

My pack felt heavier. My legs were tired, and didn’t seem to want to bend. Not one part of this was pleasant or effortless. I had a brief thought about taking a picture from the middle of the bridge but my hands were shaking so much I was pretty sure I’d drop the camera so I decided against it. Oddly enough, and this surprised me, the worst part of the bridge was not the part that was suspended, it was the ramps leading up and down. They were narrow, wobbly and I felt I was going to lose my balance on them. Crossing wasn’t as bad as I imagined it would be but I did breathe a sigh of relief when I got to the end. I nearly crawled down the ramp on the other side, though, which was a bit embarrassing since there were people waiting to get on the bridge and only one person was allowed on at a time. I had to do it twice and it wasn’t really any easier the second time, but I had to go across to get home!

Would I do it again?

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SUSPENSION BRIDGE… DONE!

Absolutely (immersion therapy – desensitizing myself to the sensations). I think I’ll be doing another, longer, suspension bridge in October. Pretty sure I won’t have a 40lb pack on my back so that should make the balance a tiny bit easier! Maybe next time I drive into Vancouver I won’t hold my breath going across the Port Mann Bridge… maybe!

50 Crazy Things in my 50th Year – Thing #7 – Embrace Obstacles (plus bonus gift)

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5K Foam Fest

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I really thought this crazy thing would be about going over / under / through / up / down obstacles, but it turned out to be a much bigger thing than I expected.

group 2

Here we are at the start.

The 5K Foam Fest is a fun obstacle course race that takes place in different areas of the country. We first heard about it around Christmas, when a group of us were doing the 5K Santa Shuffle fun run for the Salvation Army. This wasn’t one group who have known each other for a long time, it was a bunch of women bringing in their friends to do a Christmas fundraiser. Through the miracle of Facebook, we started seeing ads for this obstacle race and some of us decided to sign up. Then we brought friends in to make the team bigger. A lot of us started as strangers but finished as friends. We started a message thread on Facebook and added people as others heard of what we were going to do. We chose a team name… OOYL (Only Once You Live… ala Yoda) and even managed to organize team shirts (thanks Krista!).

Starting line 2.

Here we are all warm and clean. That’s about to change. Photo by Nathan Froese.

The race was at Silverstar Ski Resort near Vernon and even though it was June and sunny, it was bloody cold – it even snowed the night before.

The idea of the event is you run through foam that’s deeper than you are, and then head out on a trail course where there will be approximately 20 obstacles you’ll have to tackle. Many of these obstacles involve water… actually, probably at least half.

Why was this crazy?

This was crazy for a number of reasons. First, there are the obstacles. I’m not really built for climbing, I didn’t even crawl when I was a baby (extremely sensitive knees!) and I was never really a monkey bar type of kid.

Second, I am an obsessively prepared person. I like to know exactly what I’m getting myself in for well before I show up for anything. For this event, I wasn’t even sure what all the obstacles would be although the promotional videos showed a number of them. I intentionally didn’t think about it. I didn’t look for ropes somewhere to try climbing those net things in secret when nobody was looking. I didn’t set up a mock obstacle course in some remote area so I could master the obstacles in secret. I just parked the obsessive part of my brain that needs to not look foolish and showed up on the day of the event.

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My favourite picture of me. I survived the Lily Pads! Picture taken by Nathan Froese.

Third, and this I didn’t think about ahead of time, I was on a team with a bunch of women – some of whom I didn’t know. This isn’t always a big deal but I work with almost all women, and have for most of my adult life, and sometimes things can get … bitchy or competitive. Hanging with groups of women is not something I normally pursue but I have done it more in the past few years. This turned out to be one of the coolest parts of my experience.

So my running buddy Jody and I showed up at the site, we tracked down our team members, which wasn’t easy given there were roughly 5,000 people competing through the day, and we lined up at the start line. There were 14 of us. It was awesome.

Let the obstacles begin!

fence 1

That bloody fence doesn’t look so hard from here.

When we started four of us wanted to run more so they went off ahead. The rest of us stayed together for most of the course. We went through foam, straight up a mountain, down inflatable slides into pools of freezing foamy mud, and then we got to a fence. I’m thinking it was about 10 feet tall and the horizontal slats were at odd distances from each other. Some of us hopped right over, but others, such as myself, had trouble with the physics of it. I could get up on the bottom rung but I couldn’t get my arm around to pull myself over. A boost from behind from my teammates and I was nearly launched over it. Obstacle complete, and I had my first sense of how amazing this day would be.

water slide dc

We slid down these a lot! There is a pool of foam, ice cold water, and mud at the bottom – best not to hit that part head first.

We continued, more inflatable slides, back down the mountain, to a rope we climbed to pull ourselves up a hill that looked like straw but turned out be ice and snow covered by straw. Then we reached the lily pads. These are the type of mats we used in gym when I was in school. They were lashed together with rope into a long chain that ran almost the length of a really large pond. The idea is you have to run across these to the other side without falling in. Well, plenty of people fell in. Nobody survived with dry feet. I managed to stumble a bit but I made it across and it was a huge amount of fun. I was last in our group and the rest of them were on the other side cheering me on. Hmmm, this team concept might not be so bad. Then we had to crawl across inner tubes that were lashed together over more water – nothing was dry from this point on!

Next we ran up the mountain (other side of the valley) and encountered more obstacles – tires (like football players run through), more sliding, a maze of bungy cord that made me think I was training to rob an elite financial institution, and then crawling through mud below a web of bungy cord so you had to really crawl to make it underneath. There was shale in the mud so my knees, though numb from cold, were screaming! We slid down more slides into wet pools, ran through deep mud pools, and then reached a vertical web of rope that we had to make our way across laterally. Again, I was at the end of the group and I noticed that for a moment, the entire obstacle was covered in women in blue tank tops – my team. It made me feel proud – some weren’t confident on this at all. We heard it was best to grab the vertical parts of the net instead of the horizontal, which was more instinctive. It worked and we all made it through. There was another net that followed, but it was a huge, maybe 30ft, tent-shaped structure that we had to climb over. One of my team was on the other side ahead of me. She stayed in one place, keeping the ropes taut for me, so it was easier to climb over… teamwork!

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Stacy rocking the lily pads.

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These were super hard! Photo by Nathan Froese.

rope 1

You can’t fool us, there’s ice and snow under that hay!

mud 2

This was easily the worst part for me. My knees were screaming! It didn’t help that Krista was flinging mud back at us and hit me in the mouth.

climbing 2

Grab the vertical parts, not the horizontal ones.

slide 1

Here I am coming down the slide at the end with Jody – caught Mid Scream. This is becoming a theme with me. Photo by Nathan Froese.

For all of these obstacles a core group of nine of us stayed together the whole time. The group didn’t move until every one of us completed the obstacle. That made me feel so good. And I’m super proud that despite a diverse collection of fears, none of us skipped an obstacle – we all supported each other and made it through every obstacle!

Two hours after we started (there were bottlenecks at some of the obstacles with long lines) we reached our last obstacle, an enormous inflatable slide that we went down two at a time. I’m not wild about falling / jumping from heights or moving fast. Jody and I did it together. I screamed. I loved it!

Here is the bonus I wasn’t expecting. We were a group that stayed together. Instead of egos there was problem solving. This person has short legs and a fear of heights, how do we get her over this obstacle? And then we made it happen. One of us turned her ankle. We all stopped until she was OK to go on. One for all, all for one!

I have never been so cold, wet and happy all at the same time! Next year we’re opening the team up to our families / partners. Current working team name is… Revenge of the Mud Monsters!

Huge thanks to my teammates – I am so grateful for every single one of them: Jody, Krista, Monica, Tracey, Trisha, Pam, Heidi, Stacy, Christine, Jillian, Diane, Dina, and Terri – while most of us stayed together, those that didn’t were still a huge part of my experience because the experience wasn’t just the weekend, it was the fun months of planning leading up to it!

Also huge thanks to Nathan Froese, who got way better pictures of us than the Foam Fest people did! Many of these pictures came from Nathan, and others came from three disposable waterproof cameras we had on the course with us. We are definitely doing that again next year!

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There we are, at the finish… all vertical and kinda muddy!

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A little foam cleaned us a up a bit! Photo by Nathan Froese.

50 Crazy Things in my 50th Year – Thing #6 – Join the Circus

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Trapeze School of New York (Los Angeles)

On a scale of 1 to 10, I have a paralysing fear of jumping and falling that reaches about 11. This has followed me my whole life and it has kept me from participating in a lot of activities with friends and family. It’s not heights that scare me. I’m fine with heights. It’s falling – being out of control, going fast down a hill, that feeling in my stomach of inevitable crashing and doom. Since this year is all about addressing that place where I stop myself from participating – I knew I would have to face this fear. What I actually started searching, though, was how to run away and join the circus. I didn’t know how profound this would be for me.

I started googling different things and came across trapeze. Of course, I could have gone to clown school (whole other set of fears there) but when I saw the Trapeze School of New York, I was intrigued. When I saw they had five locations and one was in Los Angeles, where I would be for the Tinkerbell Half Marathon weekend – I nearly threw up.

The lean

The lean

This is our instructor showing us how it should be done.

This is our instructor showing us how it should be done.

Why is this Crazy?

Duh! – for the obvious reasons.

Plus, I have always had poor grip strength. I avoid carrying bags in my hands. I was never a kid who played on monkey bars. I have loose, sometimes called ‘double jointed’ fingers and thumbs and have determined that my hands were designed for typing, not gripping. Trapeze = hanging from a bar by your hands.

I’ve lost a lot of weight, but I still have a lot more to go. I wasn’t even sure I could hold myself up while swinging (turns out fear handled that pretty quickly!).

My fear of jumping and falling is, in my head, extreme.

I remember when I was about seven, climbing up to the 3 meter board at Brock Pool because all of my friends were jumping off it. I got to the top and let one person, then the next, then the next, through a very long line of people pass me before I finally threw myself off the end. It’s the only time I have ever jumped off the 3 meter board and I was a lifeguard for seven years! I could teach a diving class standing on the deck of the pool!

When I was training to be a lifeguard I remember being at Westsyde Pool and having to learn how to teach a back dive off the 1 meter board. The instructor, now a prominent firefighter, picked me (why????) from the class to demonstrate. I had no choice. I stood on the end, wanting to vomit, and he stood right in front of me. He told me to fall backwards and stretch when he yelled. I couldn’t fall. He had to push me, and I remember reaching for his red sweat shirt before I went down. I missed. Instinctively I must have stretched when he yelled because I didn’t hurt myself. When I got out of the water he told the class to remember what my face looked like, because that’s exactly what a drowning victim will look like. Then he made me do it again. I was 16 at the time. I haven’t done one since.

I love cross country skiing, yet when I’m going down a hill seniors regularly kick snow in my face because my snowplow is so wickedly awesome (meaning excessively controlled, or slow). My friend, Wendy, wanted to put me into immersion therapy to fix this by taking me up to the killer cross country runs at Sun Peaks – the ones you take the chair lift up to, and pushing me when I was at the top. She figured that by the time I stopped screaming I’d be over my fear. In a way, Trapeze School, must have been my version of immersion therapy.

Trapeze School on Santa Monica Pier

My first swing

My first swing after four false starts

The most I can say about my trapeze experience is I would be considered a ‘remedial’ flyer (my word, not theirs). I was in a class with eight other people. Two were very advanced and go regularly, practicing all kinds of tricks. They looked awesome. The rest were first timers like me. One, Keri, a law student, had a gymnastics background and was celebrating her birthday. The other, Monica, has an adventure web series and seems pretty fearless. The others were high school students from Malibu who were also celebrating a birthday.

The most important thing I have to say here is how great the other students and the staff were. I felt totally supported and it was a great feeling to be with these people. The staff were incredible – I can’t stress that enough.

The first thing we were supposed to do was swing out on the bar, hook our knees up, and hang by our knees when the bar was swinging. We were all wearing harnesses and were strapped in any time we weren’t on the ground. You climb up to the platform, which is 23 ft above the ground, and look out over a net below you… and all the tourists who are watching. When it was our turn, there is a person on the top who has a grip on the back of your harness. They won’t let you go until you are in the perfect position. This part is so counter-intuitive – instead of sticking your butt back and leaning forward, you have to lean so far forward it feels like you’re going to fall. You’re holding part of the platform with your left hand and the bar (which is heavier than it looks) with your right hand. Then you give a little jump, and the person holding the back of your harness lets go.

My first swing

swinging and not dead!

swinging and not dead!

It took me four false starts before I could get off the platform and I screamed in terror as I flew. Before I jumped I actually had the feeling of putting my fear away, like in a box. It didn’t go away, but it wasn’t running the show. This is possibly the second scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life and I’ve been upside down in a stunt airplane. I didn’t have to worry about holding on to the bar because you couldn’t have pried my fingers off it. When it came time to let go, you don’t get to pick when. They yell when you are at the far end of the swing facing the sky so you fall on your back. When they yell you have to let go. I screamed again as I fell. Letting go was THE scariest thing I’ve done in my life. Mike Nesbitt, Keri’s partner, had my camera and was so nice about taking pictures for me. He actually caught me mid scream! (best picture ever!)

I remember landing in the net and bursting into tears. My whole body was violently shaking. I crawled to the edge of the net to get down and then I couldn’t stand up because my knees were shaking so much. I think this is where everyone there, students and staff, got a good look at what a drowning victim would look like. I got lots of hugs. Right there I met the criteria for the crazy things and I could have quit and still considered it a success. The best thing I did was get back up there.

The rest of the swings

Others were doing way more advanced things, and by the end of the class some were even being caught by a guy on another trapeze. But I just

Swinging

Swinging

swung on the trapeze about 8 or 9 times (I wasn’t counting). That was truly the most I could do and each time got a little easier. The first was definitely the worst. It never did get really easy. I could have had one more swing but I knew my head had had enough extra activity and my hands were bruised. The class was two hours but it felt like a lot longer. I knew I was done for the day but I also know I’ll be back. Maybe next time I’ll get my knees over the bar!

I have to say I made some awesome new friends that day. Everyone was so supportive of each other and the kindness of strangers was truly amazing and memorable. I need to find a good set of monkey bars because I’m going to start training and I will be back! If you ever get the chance – do it! It is the most amazing experience ever and I only experienced a small part of it! I am proud that I run half marathons, and that I am fit and I’ve lost a lot of weight, but this is probably my biggest fear ever and I am so proud of myself for taking that first jump.

And to answer the question I’ve heard most since I got back…. No! I have no plans to jump out of a perfectly good airplane or off a bridge with a rubber band tied to my leg!

Would I do it again?

Yes! Did I get over my fear? No… but I did chip away at a corner of it.  Monica Ortega, who was in the class with me, has a motto on her

website – You only live once, try everything twice! I’m going to try and follow that this year.

The Scream

The Scream

Still alive

Still alive

50 Crazy Things in my 50th Year – Thing #5 – Run Half Marathons on Each Coast in the Same Year

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Coast to Coast

The Pink Coast to Coast medal.

The Coast to Coast Challenge

Given I basically haven’t travelled in the past 20 years except to Saskatchewan, Vancouver, and Victoria, trying to organize and actually follow through with two trips to the US for something as frivolous as running was truly insane – and very much needed. I used to travel a lot. I backpacked around Britain and Ireland for two months after university, and then I moved back to Ireland for six months the following year. In university I travelled to Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City, Windsor, Toronto, and other places for exchanges or disabled sporting events when I worked for sport groups. After university I travelled to Niagara to fly with Air Combat Canada, kayaked and sailed in Haida Gwaii, and drove down the Oregon Coast working as a travel writer.

Lately, though, I’ve found myself in a travel rut and that rut has been getting narrower and narrower. This whole 50 Crazy Things started with me on Pinterest (drinking red wine – never a good combination) seeing costumes for RunDisney. Less than a year later I was in Florida, where I had never been before, running with Amanda Cowell. In August I just decided I would run for a charity, and ended up registered in the Pixie Dust Challenge in California the following May. It still blows me away that I just stepped out of my travel rut.

I’m now a seasoned pro again with baggage, flights, and US and Canadian Customs handled. On that first trip to Florida, Amanda breezed through US customs while I looked like a babbling idiot. Of course, she had a hunky guy who was flirting with her and I had a woman who looked like she might have prison guard figure prominently on her resume. I noticed going to and coming from California my customs luck had changed and I had hunky guys in each direction. Perhaps that was because I wasn’t travelling with Amanda. Food for thought.

The Coast to Coast medal is a free option from RunDisney and I didn’t know what a big deal it was until I’d already registered for the Pixie Dust Challenge. To earn a Coast to Coast medal you need to do one RunDisney Half Marathon on each coast in the same calendar year. To earn the much coveted pink Coast to Coast you need to specifically run the Disney Princess Half Marathon and the Disney Tinkerbell Half Marathon in the same calendar year. Conveniently, I did just that. The regular Coast to Coast medal is blue. Maybe I need the set.

Why was this crazy?

I made myself leave the comfort of home, get out, move, do something unfamiliar. It’s been so long I forgot how to do it. I forgot how easy it was. And I remembered how hard it is. When you actually have a job and responsibilities it’s not always easy to just pick up and go somewhere, but for the most part, the rest of my world can adapt for a couple of days.

The Coast to Coast medal is more than a medal for running. To me it symbolizes travel that doesn’t really make sense – and that’s what makes it important.

Will I do it again?

Probably not the medal – but the travel…. ABSOLUTELY! There are places I want to go, places I want to take my mom. If I wait for the time to be right, it will probably never happen. The time is never right, and the time is always right.

50 Crazy Things in my 50th Year – Thing #4 – Run a 10K and a Half Marathon Back to Back

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Pixie Dust Challenge shirt

3 medals / 3 shirts!

I have run seven half marathons in my past and have always kept to the rule that you don’t run back to back days. The rule, for me, has almost become a superstition and in my head if I run on back to back days very bad things would happen. My quadriceps may fall off, my hamstrings may decide to try macramé, or my Achilles Tendons would spontaneously shred and disappear completely – all of which would permanently cripple me. I have a very active imagination.

I started to notice a few years ago that some race organizers, and RunDisney in particular, were offering challenge races and everyone and their dog was clamoring for registration spots. These races are either on back to back days, or even on the same day. People also seem to want to register multiple years in a row which suggests that none of the above atrocities happened to them – they all seemed to have perfectly normal quads, hamstrings, and Achilles tendons. This intrigued me.

Challenge runs have been around since at least 2005 when RunDisney listened to people complaining about how they wanted to earn all the medals in an event weekend by participating in all the events. That year they offered the first Goofy Race and a Half Challenge as part of the Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend. You could either choose to run the 5K, 10K, Half Marathon or Full Marathon, or you could choose to ‘do Goofy’ and run the Half Marathon and Full Marathon on back to back days for a total of 39.3 miles (62.88 Km). Now they even have the ‘Dopey’ challenge – which involves the running extremely ridiculous sequence of 5K / 10K / Half Marathon / Full Marathon on four consecutive days – truly a Dopey endeavour!

Challenges are seriously the latest craze and not only RunDisney is doing them. Most big races have this kind of option now and these challenges often sell out before the individual races do.

Why is this Crazy?

Pixie Dust Challenge medals

It’s all about the bling!

It wouldn’t be a crazy year if I wasn’t testing my boundaries of what I will and won’t do, and pushing myself past the places where I normally stop. Therefore, you guessed it, I had to do a challenge. I chose the Pixie Dust Challenge at the Disney Tinkerbell Half Marathon, which involved running the 10K on Saturday, May 9th, and the Half Marathon on Sunday, May 10th . This would be for a total of 19.3 miles (30.1 Km). My biggest fear was that I would injure myself and not be able to run anymore.

Strategy

Running as part of Team Lemon with Alex’s Lemonade Stand, I was offered the services of an online coach – Coach Mary. She gave me some training tips that involved starting to run light back to back days and working my way up. This worked, but I still was doubtful, and actually really worried!

In talking to people who have done it many admit that they coast through one of the races and push themselves harder for the others. It’s all about the medals and by doing the Pixie Dust Challenge I would get three of the lovely beauties.

It worked!

I decided to go pretty easy on both runs. My only goal was to finish both while still vertical. I also had costume elements, heat, etc. to deal with and I wanted to have some fun, too.

I ran the 10K slower than I usually run a 10K and had a blast. I stopped to take lots of pictures, enjoy the sights, and I just ran to finish the race. Done!

 

Not Slow

OK, THIS is my favourite sign ever!

Still vertical!

Favourite sign EVER!

The next morning I wasn’t feeling sore at all and I ran the half marathon, also slower than I normally run, and also had a blast. I got the three medals, and the afternoon of half marathon day I noticed I was hardly sore at all. And the next day I was barely sore – not nearly as sore as I was after running the Victoria Half Marathon and the Rock n’ Roll Vancouver 10K within two weeks of each other last fall. In fact, I have never recovered so well from a running event as I did from the Pixie Dust Challenge. Consider my brain completely baffled… and thrilled!

Would I do it again?

Absolutely. The hardest part, in all seriousness, was getting up at 3:00 am for two mornings in a row. The running part was not too bad… and the medals… seriously worth it! Would I do Dopey?…. uh, probably not, but given the way this year is going I won’t rule anything out in the future!

Spread your wings

By slowing down and enjoying what was going on around me I actually noticed this sign – “Only two miles to go… Now spread your wings and let the fairy in you fly!”

 

50 Crazy Things in my 50th Year – Thing #3 – Fundraise for a Charity

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Thank you!

Thank you!

This was a huge challenge for me because it involved putting myself out there, asking for help, and being a bit of a pest! I hate fundraising and I hate asking for help. I love helping other people when I can, though. My biggest risk here was that I would fail… very publicly.

Raising money for large runs has been going on for a lot of years and the system is a win-win-win for everyone. The event organizer, in this case RunDisney, gives select charities slots in different races. Often these races sell out fast so people who can’t register choose to run for a charity so they can get in. The charity then registers runners using these slots with the stipulation that they must raise a certain amount of money. The runner doesn’t have to pay the registration fee, the charity raises money, and it doesn’t cost RunDisney anything and they have a lot of good will to spread around. For the Tinkerbell Half Marathon weekend, runners from Team Lemon were raising different minimum amounts based on the events they were running. Since I was doing the Pixie Dust Challenge, which involved running the 10K and the Half Marathon back to back, my fundraising amount was the highest.

Why Alex’s Lemonade Stand?

Since I knew I wanted to run for a charity I looked ahead at which charities I could choose from. During the Half Marathon I saw people running for veterans, animals, disabilities, and various devastating diseases. They were all very worthy and deserved all the support they could get, but Alex’s Lemonade Stand gave research grants to Canadian researchers, which was important to me. In some way, the money I raised had to have a chance to help in Canada. As soon as I read more about them, I knew they were a good fit for me and I was hoping I could raise the money I needed to. In total I needed to raise $1,900 US in eight months.

I ran the Tinkerbell 10K dressed as a Lemonade Stand Fairy

I ran the Tinkerbell 10K dressed as a Lemonade Stand Fairy

Dress the Fairy

I decided I had to make this fun for my friends and family to participate in. Just asking for money wouldn’t do. Since most people running Run Disney races participate in costume, I decided to let my friends and family play Dress the Fairy. I created a costume template and set a point amount for each element of the costume. Points were directly related to dollars raised. Here’s how it broke down:

300         Wings

400         Tutu

200         Running Skirt

150         Sparkly Head Gear

130         Glitter Makeup

100         Nails

300         Sparkly Shoes

500         Head to toe in pink

Sparkly Nails

Thanks to Amanda Cowell for imprisoning my nails in sparkly pink nail polish – for the first time EVER!

When someone donated, they had to let me know where they wanted their points to go. They could put them toward the wings, or head to toe in pink, or any combination they wanted.

This worked because I’m not known as a wing/tutu wearing pink person who would be caught dead in a running skirt, glitter, and in particular… pink! Before this I owned nothing in pink. My mom says she dressed me in pink when I was a baby but that stopped when I got a voice and could dress myself. Using primarily word of mouth and Facebook I made regular posts with costume totals and had people encouraging others to ‘finish off the wings’, or ‘get pink handled’. If the costume elements weren’t finished by the time I left for California, the element wasn’t going to happen. My starting place was a black shirt and black capris. Gradually, it all came together and this fairy ended up a sparkled, winged, and tutued all in pink!

In total 60 people or groups (families / couples) contributed money toward my campaign, and countless others contributed cheering and support. It’s important to recognize that not everyone has money to spare, but it doesn’t mean they don’t support you. More often than not I’m the one who doesn’t have the money to donate. I am extremely grateful for those who supported me in all they ways they could, and some of those ways were financial.

Why it matters

Pink Fairy

The Pink Fairy is ready to run.

Along the way I met people associated with Team Lemon who had lost children. A young boy in Kamloops passed away from a very long fight with cancer the week before I left for California. I passed people on the running route who had signs thanking people for running for charities. Other runners thanked me when they saw I was running for Alex’s Lemonade Stand. One woman cheering on the course, at a part that was particularly difficult (around 17 Km when it was hot and agonizing), had a sign that said, “I’m a cancer survivor, thank you for running for me!” Me being a bit hot or a bit sore for a few hours was nothing compared to what these families were going through for months or even years. It matters.

The day before the run Team Lemon runners at the event got an email from our coordinator thanking us for raising the money. As a team we raised $34,000 which we were told is worth over four months of research time. It matters.

The Result

I raised $2,060 for Alex’s Lemonade Stand. I was absolutely floored by this and I’m so grateful to everyone who helped me out. People I hadn’t talked to in ages jumped in to help. My family and friends really got behind it, which says a lot about the kind of people I choose to have in my life. I even had seniors in Logan Lake slipping me $20 dollar bills and whispering, “Put it on those wings, dear!”

Why is this crazy?

I had to put myself out there big time, I had to be in people’s faces trying to get them to donate money. I had to ask for help, and the risk of failure was very real.

What worked?

I made it fun. I made it something original that my friends and family would be able to have fun with. If I had chosen blue I wouldn’t have raised as much because I wear blue all the time. I had to risk public humiliation. I even added that if I raised even one dollar over my goal I would spend one day in the Logan Lake Library dressed as the pink fairy.

The Pink Fairy was at the Logan Lake Library on May 14th, 2015.

The Pink Fairy was at the Logan Lake Library on May 14th, 2015.

Would I do it again?

Absolutely! I hope to keep finding new ways to raise money for Alex’s Lemonade Stand and other charities. It’s good for the soul and it can be fun if you let it.

 

 

 

50 Crazy Things – Crazy Thing #1 – Run the Disney Princess Half Marathon

/ Vesta Giles / 1 Comment
YKA Ready for takeoff!

With Amanda at the Kamloops Airport (YKA) ready to leave on our adventure!

Here it is. My 50 Crazy Things in My 50th year has begun. I, very much a non-Disney Princess, ran the Disney Princess Half Marathon at Disneyworld on February 22, 2014 – just two days before my 49th birthday. When I thought of it, it was the craziest thing I could think of doing. I was in a bit of a funk, annoyed that I was going to turn 50 next year and feeling like I’m not what I imagined 50 to look or feel like. I feel like I’m in my 30’s, in the prime of my life, like I have everything ahead of me. I needed to get out of the rut I was building around myself, the habits that were easy, making my life smaller

Oh yeah, Princess Vesta is real!

Oh yeah, Princess Vesta is real!

and smaller instead of growing bigger. When I told one of my library patrons, who is in her sixties, what I was doing she said I should do 50 Crazy Things in My 50th year to celebrate and hit that number head on instead of cowering from it. So, here I am. I am doing 50 crazy things that will help me get over fears and self-imposed limitations that keep me from living life 100 per cent. Some seem really easy and some are really hard, but all of them are designed to get me back in the game.

 It all started when…

Pinterest - Am I really going to run a marathon?

Amanda surprised me be decorating our window with images from the insane Pinterest board we used to plan the trip. I loved it!

All of this thinking started in the spring of 2014. I was drinking wine and surfing Pinterest, never a good combo, and I started coming across running costumes for races. I started randomly sending the Disney ones to my friend, Amanda, who loves Disney and had never run a step in her adult life. Long story short, she finally started talking to me again and then said, sure, let’s go for it.

We registered, a bit of a miracle there as it sold out in six hours, and then we started making plans that culminated in not only the run, but 5 days away from home, 3 days in Walt Disney World and one in Universal Orlando. I realized I hadn’t been to the United States in probably twenty years, and I hadn’t even been on a plan in six years. This trip was long overdue for me, even if it was to just shake things up a bit.

We had a great time staying at Disney’s Art of Animation Resort, in an Ariel Room as a tribute to the fact that I was running as Ariel from the Little Mermaid. Amanda was running as Rapunzel.

Run wise – it sucked! I’ve felt much better during other half marathons – the time change, humidity, and crowds did me in, and the hip and foot injuries I had didn’t help. Aside from that, though, this was an extraordinary experience for me.

Why was this crazy?

Running out of the castle.

Ariel and Rapunzel coming out of Cinderella’s Castle – who gets to do that????

Although I used to travel when I was younger, I haven’t done anything different for a really long time. I hadn’t been on an airplane in about six years, and I hadn’t been to the states in about twenty years. This was the furthest east (in North America) and the furthest south I’ve ever been. I can’t remember the last time I did something that was just for me. The biggest thing was I said I wanted to do something… and I did it! This is me reclaiming my adventuresome spirit. I know my plans have inspired other people to try new things and step out of their comfort zones.

Huge thanks to Amanda Cowell for taking up the challenge, running her first half marathon, and planning the Disney part of our trip perfectly. I know it was an adventure for her too.

Check out our gallery for more pictures from our Disney adventure.

Oh yeah, we rocked it!

Oh yeah, we rocked it!

Registering for the Disney Princess Half Marathon (or 50 Crazy Things in my 50th Year)

/ Vesta Giles / 3 Comments

After much stress and a ridiculous amount of trauma, my friend Amanda and I have registered for the Disney Princess Half Marathon which means we will be running through Epcot and Disney World on February 22, 2015 – two days before my 49th birthday.

forget the glass slipper

Now, much in that first sentence is significant. First, the trauma of registration. I’ll reveal our tips for surviving this unbelievably stressful activity at the bottom of this post. After the horrors of the registration process, however, running 21 Km (13.1 Miles) dressed as a Disney princess at 5:30 in the morning Florida time will be a piece of (birthday) cake!

What’s most remarkable about that sentence, though, is the phrase “Disney Princess” combined with “two days before my 49th birthday.”

Forty-nine is an age I’ve been backpedalling toward for the last couple of years because it is the day I start my 50th year, and I don’t feel nearly 50. I don’t feel, look, or act like an almost 50 year old would feel, look or act. I was dreading it and even cowering from it. It feels like I’m careening down a waterfall, bouncing off rocks along the sides, falling into a boiling pool with 50 painted on the bottom by some evil 25 year old. No matter how I cower or hide, it will still find me whether I admit it or not. My life doesn’t look like it should, or like any of us thinks it should at this point (ie relationships, established career, house, blah blah blah!).

So one night, while drinking wine and surfing Pinterest (bad combination! Nothing good can come of this!), I started to see Disney Princess running costumes. I thought these were hilarious so I started bombarding my friend Amanda with all of these running and Disney pins I was finding. She, a non-runner but Disneyholic, was completely baffled at why I was sending her these things. In my late night wine induced state I told her that I was going to run the 2015 Disney Princess Half Marathon two days before my 49th birthday – in Florida – in costume – and she was going to run it with me. After two days of radio silence I finally heard from her again.

Amanda: “You know I don’t run, don’t you?”

Me: “I run really slow, and you’ve got lots of time to train. Really we could walk it at a quick pace.”

Two more days of radio silence followed before she, much to my shock and surprise, jumped on board. Fast forward to months later, we are both obsessing about details and actually registered to run the Disney Princess half marathon.

Now, when anyone meets me, Disney and Princess are NOT the first things they think of. This is why it’s so great. I’m not just getting out of my comfort zone, I’m leaping out of it in full princess regalia and stomping on it with both feet! Working at the library, one of my favourite patrons came in and when I told her what I was planning to do and how I was dreading 50, she, who is in her sixties, declared, “You know what you need to do? You need to do 50 crazy things in your 50th year! Don’t cower from it, hurl yourself at it!” I picture myself like paint splatter being flung off a brush and onto a canvas that is my life. Hmmmm. She did get me thinking.

At that time I was also in the process of making a dress and some skirts from upcycled t-shirts (more on those in a future post). I realized at about this time that these pieces of clothing I was making had no labels. There were no sizes. They were fitted to me and that was the only label they would have – fitted to my size right now. I had an ‘aha’ moment then – 50 is a label. When I look at clothing, a 12 in some brands is not the 12 in other brands. Those are just labels that someone stuck on them. What if the same was true for me? What if 50 was a label I, and others, created years ago that has nothing to do with who I am now? What if I got rid of it like I do itchy and irritating clothing labels? It didn’t hurt that I saw shortly after that Sandra Bullock is turning 50 this summer. Suddenly it didn’t look tooooo bad! If she could do it, maybe I could too.

Thus, my plan to do 50 Crazy Things in my 50th Year was born and I will launch that year on February 22nd by running the Disney Princess Half Marathon, in costume, with Amanda and 26,000 other princesses. For the other 49 things I have a list, but it isn’t complete yet. My main rule is it will not involve jumping out of, off of, or onto anything (regardless of the paint splatter image)!

Amanda and I are now busy planning the details of our trip – good thing we both LOVE planning – I’m sure we’ll need a 12-step group when we get home and have nothing left to plan.

disney princess batman

Vesta and Amanda’s Tips for registering for a Run Disney run:

These events sell out fast and they are notorious for computer crashes and other terrifying obstacles to registration. Since the obstacles don’t seem to be going away, here are some tips for getting through the registration process with at least some of your sanity intact. Amanda and I were VERY prepared. We also took very helpful information from a number of blogs and postings from other runners.

  1.  Pee before the registration starts. Seriously! You’ll be stressed out, possibly over caffeinated, lacking in sleep and you could be sitting there for awhile!
  2. If you are running with someone else, swap registration information (Active.com log in info, name, address, birthdate, shirt size, name and contact info of next of kin, event that you’re signing up for, all credit card info including that number on the back, and also what commemorative souvenirs they want to purchase). Then if one can’t get through the other one might. ****This was EXTREMELY IMPORTANT FOR US! When we went to register I would get to the part where I submitted my credit card info and then the site would crash, I’d get an internal server error, and it would boot me out and lose all my info. It was happening to both of us but eventually it was Amanda who got me registered. It took 45 minutes but we were both in.
  3. If you have a previous race time you want to use get you into a better corral you could swap that info too but don’t worry about it if it’s going to slow down your registration. You can always send that info in after.
  4. Canadians (and other non-American residents) – don’t forget the exchange rate. The rate you see online will often be lower than the one the credit cards use so make sure you have enough available to cover all the costs. These are expensive races.
  5. Be prepared, we were ready with computers rebooted and the speakerphone on before registration started. Regarding the speaker phones, this leads me to another point. Wear a headset if the other person (ie me) is prone to swearing when they get stressed. Amanda needed that headset big time, and since I already accidentally taught her six year old son how to swear when he was visiting me in the library, she was well prepared for this possibly happening again… and it did! There were many f-bombs dropped in the name of Disney that morning!
  6. Limit distractions. Occupy the rest of your family so you won’t have any distractions. Again, this is her thing, I don’t have those kinds of distractions.
  7. Be patient! If the site crashes keep hitting refresh and trying again. I was watching the Run Disney Facebook page at the same time and people were giving up because they couldn’t get through. 30,000 other people were trying to get through as well! It took a little over six hours for the event to sell out.
  8. Try a different browser. I discovered part way through my nightmare that Google Chrome users were not crashing as much as those of us on Internet Explorer. One of the things that worked for me and Amanda was that we were in different towns, with different internet service providers, and she was on a Mac and I was on a PC. I had to humbly admit that her Mac kicked sand in the face of my admittedly cheap PC.
  9. Have an Active.com membership and remember your user name and password. Many of the problems seem to stem from Active.com, who Disney uses to process their registrations. I’ve heard other nightmares about the Chicago Marathon and other big events who use Active. Some people were able to bypass the Active membership by signing in as a guest, and a lot of people seemed to have good luck that way. I wouldn’t count on that though. It’s best if you have your account info and you can always sign in as a guest later if it doesn’t work.
  10. If you can, try a test run. The Disney Star Wars Half Marathon registration was about a month before ours. Now, we probably contributed to their problems because they were also crashing (sorry!) but we both tried registering for that event up to the point where we had to put our credit card info in, and then got out. This was just so we knew what the registration process looked like. Another way to do that is look at the events that haven’t sold out yet. I went through the process for registering for Goofy’s Race and a Half Challenge during the Disney World Marathon weekend. I’m definitely not going to run a half marathon one day and a full the next, but neither are a lot of people so it hadn’t filled up yet. I got through the process AND discovered that Active.com charges a processing fee that Amanda and I didn’t know about, so we knew ahead of time to up our registration budget by about $20 (don’t even get me started on how they can charge that for a site that crashes like it does).
  11. Pay attention to social media. Part way through the registration process Run Disney posted a different link to try registering through on their Facebook page as it appeared Active was having ‘issues’ and they were trying to resolve them. This is a live feed of what people are experiencing and it’s very valuable. I didn’t look at the Twitter feed but I’m pretty sure it was similar.
  12. If you don’t get in, there are other ways to register. Amanda and I both had this in the back of our minds that it was an option. There are still spots available if you go through one of the Run Disney travel providers or if you raise money for one of the many great charities that participate and that’s a win-win for everyone.

After we registered Amanda (the extrovert) was energized and ready to rip through her day. I (the introvert) stared at the ceiling and waited for the world to stop spinning, which took most of the day.

 

Some of the many blogs we found helpful for the registration process:

http://www.glistenwhileyourun.com/2014/03/rundisney-registration-tips.html

http://www.werundisney.com/2013/04/tips-for-registering-for-major-race.html

http://makermothermarathonrunner.com/2014/04/15/tips-for-registering-for-the-2015-walt-disney-world-marathon-weekend/

 

Now I’m off to get my life handled before the race starts and before I turn 49!

eat my pixie dust