Pasta Party

I was exhausted by the time I checked into the hotel. Of course, it couldn't just be easy to get into the room. No, I had to call Lindsay, who had to talk to the hotel staff. Then, when I got to the room, the key didn't work! I was so not about to haul all my stuff back downstairs from the 15th floor, so I found the hallway phone and asked them to send someone up with a new key. Thank goodness for customer service!

I had a great time catching up with Lindsay and Jen. It had only been a few weeks since I was last in California, but it felt like a lifetime! I was so excited to see my teammates that I headed down to the lobby about 30 minutes before the pasta party to meet up with some of them. How fun and surreal that we were all in Texas, my stomping grounds!

Everyone else had arrived the day before, so they had been out and about cruising along the Riverwalk and buying Texas paraphernalia, including a gigantic burnt orange Texas (UT) hat made out of foam. Dad would've been so proud. Apparently Gary agreed to put on a silly cowboy hat (or was it a tiara?) and clip-on earring for some kids on a scavenger hunt. The photo is out there somewhere to prove it. :-)

The pasta party was great -- just as energizing and inspiring as the one in San Diego. Actually, two of the speakers were the same (John "the Penguin" Bingham and the president of Elite Racing, the organization that puts on the RNR events), and their speeches were near replicas of what they said in San Diego. The third speaker, Lori Marek, was phenomenal. She lost her son to leukemia when he was just shy of 5 years old. Since then, she has completed a century ride and a triathlon with Team In Training. Her story and the photos she shared made us all cry and made me really proud to be supporting such an amazing organization.

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