Our Start

So I'm back. The "party's over depression" hasn't kicked in yet. We're all still sharing pictures and sagas of what happened out there on those 197 miles, and there's a lot more to look forward to. Some sick shit, I'll tell ya. We had a fantastic time and it all went too fast. It all started on Thursday when we left the house at 4:30 am to get to the airport. We had a flight out of Islip to D.C., then D.C. to Miami. Those flights and all the logistics went swimmingly and we landed at about 12:45 pm. Billy, a production assistant, was at the airport to pick up us and Rik and his wife Cynthia. It took us a while to find Rik, and then we found out that their luggage never made it to Miami. That sucks. Thankfully it was due to come in around 4 pm, so someone had to go back to get it, but thank goodness it did. His bag had all of his race gear in it!

flying out of D.C.

Thursday night we had dinner as a team. Would you believe Today is covering our team's story?!? Before dinner they had interviewed a few of our team members and then at dinner they covered us meeting for the first time. Surreal. Dinner was fun, to say the least, but we had a start time of 7 am, which means getting to the start line at 6 am, so we had to turn in to be up and ready. I didn't sleep very well. No surprise there. I don't sleep very well to begin with. Add in the fact that I'm in a strange place after having traveled and this huge endeavor looming over me, it's no wonder I got ANY sleep.

The gang is all here!

Charlie was set to go from Miami to Sugarloaf Key with Lealah's husband Mark, whom he had just met the night before. Angela, our director, felt there was going to be way too much traffic on Saturday for them to make it to the finish line on time, and since she had hotel rooms reserved along the course for the crew, she said they could crash there. I was happy knowing he would certainly be where he needed to be, but I felt tremendous guilt for him to kind of be pushed off to the side. He reassured me he would be okay, but when we pulled away to head to the start, I broke down. My teammates must have thought I was nuts, but I never leave Charlie (except when I get makeovers) and I was worried he was going to have a crappy time.

We headed to the start line. Van #1 had to have their safety briefing and Katie just barely made it to the start since the briefing was running long. She was ushered right to the front so the cameras could catch the big moment. There was a camera on a tripod planted right in the middle of the path and when the emcee counted down "3, 2, Run!" the runners were fighting to get some air time and there was a nice pile up. Thank goodness it wasn't the actual tripod that caused the runners to go down! Katie looked great in her pink shirt, tutu and cape, though, and managed to come out of the corral unharmed.

Ragnar Relay Florida Keys was on!

To be continued... but make sure you watch Today on NBC on Thursday, January 10th!!! That's when the piece about From Fat To Finish Line will air!!! I'm on the east coast and it is on from 7 am until 11 am with various anchors. We aren't sure the exact time they'll show it, so make sure you watch or DVR it!!