Guess who's back...
Back again...
Davey's back...
Tell a friend...
Guess who's back, guess who's back, guess who's back, guess who's back...
Nah NAH nah, nah NAH nah
Unh unh unh
Hello! Or should I say 'Hola!' I have returned from Central America - tired, exhilarated, contemplative. It was a fantastic trip and I worked my arse off. I was told by MANY people, loyal followers all, that I should have counted the past two weeks as events. Four days tromping around the mountains of Guatemala above 6500' and another week of 'hard labor' pouring concrete at the site of Casa Gloria for Mision Vida Nueva.
But... although it was extremely challenging, I won't include them as events in my quest to complete 50 events before my next birthday. This trip was more of a personal thing, a different kind of challenge than the 50@50 Project. Increased self-awareness as well as enhanced spirituality and respect for Mother Earth was the goal for me.
Check, check and check.
The ol' Blogger folks seemed to have fixed the link up between YouTube and this site. Woohoo! I'm sure you've already noticed that because of the videos you've watched from Event 17 that I was finally able to post. Right? Right. You DID watch them, didn't you? Okay, cool - just checking.
Events 18 and 19 were a study in contrasts:
18 - The American Heart Association Heart Walk (cue violins)
19 - XDog Events' Havoc At The Hideout (cue heavy metal)
18 - An event to raise awareness of heart disease
19 - An event to break your spirit and make you want to jump off the ridge when you finally FINALLY made it up the longest, steepest hill EVER
18 - Full of families and wagons and face paint and balloons and dogs and cute kids and costumes and strollers
19 - Full of beer and muscular bodies and mud and hot girls and a machine dispensing booze slushies
18 - A good cause
19 - A great party!
So, yeah - contrasts.
Camera Crew's employer, Pacific Natural Foods, was a sponsor for the Heart Walk. They formed 5-6 teams and CC was even co-captain of one them. We were the Mighty Resilient Pulmonaries or MRPs. It's a play on the acronym for the supply chain group - MRP or material resource planning. Me, I would have named us something like The Legion of Soup-er Heroes and had character names like Brothman and Soygirl. Meh - not my call.
PNF raised over $15,000 for this charity, which was pretty dang awesome. So awesome that the PNF president made a deal that if they broke $15k fundraising he would wear a heart suit with red tights. And he did! In fact, the entire event brought in over $595,000 and most of the money stays local, used for research at OHSU.
The start was near the fire station on the Eastbank Esplanade, so we took the streetcar all the way around. It was our first time riding the new line so that was cool. It was neat to go over the Broadway Bridge! We arrived at the event start and it was a raucous crowd, as people were getting amped up for the event. We found the PNF booth and hung out with Camera Crew's co-workers. The company did a great job of supporting this - lots of teams, lots of employees and SO's were there as well as kiddies.
There were 5-6,000 people doing this thang so it made it one of the larger events of the year for us. A slight drizzle had us donning our rain jackets at the start, although it let up pretty quickly. Before we started, however, we had one issue to work out. With all the previous 50@50 events, we received a bib number or wrist band or some such token to hang on our 'hall of fame'. But there wasn't anything for this event. So we went a'hunting.
With a lot of sponsor tents, we figured we could pick up some trinket or giveaway item. that was easy enough to find. But we wanted it to be something kinda cool. We finally found the perfect score - free cheap neon green sunglasses from... I forget. And all we had to do to get this bit of event memorabilia was - hula hoop!
Yeah... I'll post the videos.
The going was slow at the start as we headed north along the east side. It's fairly narrow and 6,000 people tended to plug it up. But, looking cool in our new shades, we sauntered along enjoying the sights and sounds of the poor unsuspecting runners and bikers who were trying to go south. Haha! Like salmon swimming upstream. "I went out for my Saturday morning run and there were all of these... people. Thousands and thousands of them."
By the time we got to the Steel Bridge the crowd was spread out enough that walking at our own pace was easy enough. The organizers had info placards along the course touting the history of the American Heart Association, facts about hearts and heart disease and diabetes. There was a water station just over the Steel Bridge on the west side. A brisk walk back south to the Hawthorne Bridge and a trek back over to the other side of the river brought us to the finish line. We hung around for a little bit then headed for home.
It was a very calm, light-hearted, easy event. An important cause, to be sure. It was good to see the huge turnout and all the sponsors who supported this. Subway, Jenny Craig, Kaiser Permanente, Legacy Health, OHSU, Adventist Health, Regence, Walgreens, et al. Oh, and Pacific Natural Foods, of course. www.pacificfoods.com
Go, Mighty Resilient Pulmonaries!!
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