Yesterday morning, we picked up Ben and Matt at 6:45am and headed to Crew Stadium. Dan had already carb-loaded for his run and everyone was tired. When we arrived, there weren’t too many people there. We picked up our timing chips and our tickets for the game that night (free with registration). Here’s Dan putting his first timing chip on his shoe. He was pretty excited about that. You can see the stadium in the background.
Here’s Matt with his new shirt that morning. It was a little too short for him, but he was a good sport and wore it anyway. Dan changed about 4 times before deciding to wear his and Ben didn’t even put his on until we were at home.
Here we all are, tired, but ready for the big race! This would be the boys’ first and my second 5K. I did one way back in my junior year of college and I only made it 2 miles before begging Marcy to stop.
Ben and I found the mascot, CrewCat, who is supercool. Dan and Matt have too much dignity to take pictures with mascots. Not us Richardsises!
Then after 25:06, I finished with my fastest average time of any race ever! I was fourth place in my age group (out of 31) and the 16th girl over all!! I was pretty excited, but also felt pretty nauseous at the finish line. Then, I climbed up in the bleachers to catch the boys’ big finishes! Here’s Dan first! He was looking good!
Then came Ben and Matt, together of course. They even tried to put their timing chips over the mats at the same time, so they would get the same time, but they ended up being off by 3 hundredths of a second (Ben won).
After our efforts, we rewarded ourselves with some Northstar breakfast and then we all passed out for a few hours in the middle of the day. We were verrrry tired. At 6:30, we headed out to the game, all decked out in Crew colors. We were in the upper deck (free tickets and all), but had a really good view of the Hudson Street Hooligans, who I think had been practicing their chants since being shown up by the Fire fans. Matt still wasn’t impressed and said that he was going to join the Hooligans, become president, make mandatory meetings where they make up good songs and then they practice them. Ben said they would end up singing, “Don’t Stop Believing,” which is not tough enough for the Hooligans. Still, I want to join.
Here are the future Hooligans themselves.
And here are Dan and I. I got a new Crew hat at Walmart. I know you love it! Oh, and Aunt Ann, we all have a plan to come visit you for Danny’s graduation next May and we want to try to coordinate it with a Dynamo game (Danny and David are big fans, for those of you that don’t know). If it were Crew vs. Dynamo, that would be sweet!
And I don’t have a picture right now, but Ben and Dan both took one during half time when they had all the mascots from every team in Columbus (including Brutus), but then some from restaurants too like a giant Frosty and Biscuit and Gravy from Bob Evans, playing a soccer game with a huge inflatable ball. Frosty kicked some butt, but then was punctured and had to be tended to on the sidelines. Brutus was pretty good too, but you could tell that none of them could see very well. They were all craning their heads down and running into each other. The little girl behind us said, “I like Frosty the best because he can’t see!” It was pretty awesome! Oh, and the Crew won 2-1 against FC Dallas! Woo hoo!
Here’s the picture of the mascots playing… It’s really hard to see, but you can definitely make out Frosty!
And here we all are at the tailgate afterwards.
And then we went to Bob Evans’ for some lunch.
Marky and Katie were intent on finishing all the games in the kids’ menu.
After lunch, it was off to the volleyball game at OLOP (Our Lady of Peace). It had been a really long time since I had been there, so it was cool to see it again. Here’s Katie practicing beforehand. She’s the one with her arm down because she just hit the ball. You can also see Julie off to the left. She’s the assistant coach!
Katie’s team didn’t have any luck that day either, but Katie did great! They were down by five and it was game point for the other team. Katie was serving and she got them five points in a row! They ended up going back and forth and losing by just two! Darnit!
Then, I drove all the way home because Dan and I had tickets to see the Crew play the LA Galaxy featuring, my boyfriend, David Beckham. Victoria wasn’t there though, so I was a little disappointed. If you squint hard you can see number 23 in white. Ow! (That was a cat call, not an injury.) Hehe.
