These are some of my favorite friends. Julene and Charlyce took me under their running wing when I moved to Vail and taught me all about running distances and kept me going. Jillian was Nathan's kindergarten teacher and we never even knew she ran until we ran into her at a race after she was no longer his teacher. Boy can she run! She is the most beautiful runner I have seen. Such a great stride. It took a little bit of us coaxing Melody into joining us. She was a single runner. We would see her when we were out. She finally gave in and joined us. Yeah! There are people you meet that you know will always be special to you whether you see them daily, monthly or yearly. These are some of my people like that. Charlyce moved a couple years ago to Georgia and then moved to San Diego. We decided to do a race together and picked the San Diego Mermaid Series Half Marathon. It was a girl-only race and they gave chocolate out at the end! It was close to her new house. She had barely moved in when we bombarded her. Julene moved away in November of 2011 so it was awesome to be with both her and Charlyce again. Melody stayed with some friends and we stayed with Charlyce. It was a great weekend.
This is the group prerace. Thanks to Melody's husband Don who not only drove me, Jillian and Melody to San Diego and back but was also our photographer. He was a great supporter too!
It was drizzling all morning and really quite chilly to start the race off. Julene, Jillian, Charlyce and I stayed together for about the first 3 miles. Melody had a knee injury and so she was following her race stradegy and needed to stick to it. She did awesome and had a really strong finish! Charlyce and Jillian left Julene and I and finished in a great time. They had fun running and chatting and so did Julene and I. Julene and I have always been a great running match with very similar paces. Sometimes she pulls me and sometimes I pull her. I was feeling good the last half mile so pulled ahead and finished that by myself. The race was fun. It was awesome to be with my first ever running group. The race went around Fiesta Island and then finished in I think Balboa Park. The first six to seven miles were great. You circled the island on a nice paved road. The last seven or so were not as fun as it was on sidewalk. So hard on the ankles and knees! You kind of did a figure eight on the sidewalk through the park. By the last two or three miles, the park was getting really crowded and there were lots of running/excercise groups along the path and they did not move for the racers. We were glad we finished when we did.
This is our cute finisher necklace. They gave them out insead of finisher medallions.
I love this post-race picture!
Allison Sweeney (aka Sammy from Day's of our Lives which I watched since I was a little girl-sorry mom) was the race ambasador. She is the host of a show called The Biggest Loser and I just love her. What a treat it was to meet her. She was also giving away her book. It is about weight and having kids and eating and excersing. I'm not "having kids" anymore so I didn't necessarily need the book but it was fun to get and read and to talk with her. She was awesome. So sweet. She seemed to be exactly how she is on TV on BL (not the bad-girl Sammy). She took time talking to everyone and didn't make anybody feel like she was in a hurry. Melody and I had a great time meeting her.
After we cooled down and had our showers, we headed out for the very important post-race meal. You get hungry running that much! We ate down by the pier. It was good. I can't wait to be with these girls again!
