Yesterday was my last race of the year, and the first race I ran in quite a while. It was the Operation Jack Half Marathon. It was pouring Christmas night and I was rather nervous that I would be running in rain the next morning. I am like a cat when it comes to water, and I knew I wouldn’t fare well in the rain. I woke up to a bright pink sunrise and a perfect day! I was so excited to head out to Manhattan Beach and even donned my new Nike long sleeve for the chilly weather. I parked and headed down the start. Being a smaller race, checking in was super quick! I tried to get Claude to pick up satellite, but was having a little problem with him and realized that his batteries were dead. :( Oh well. I wasn’t running for time and was already excited seeing so many people I knew. It was different being at a race where I wasn’t sitting down behind a table trying to answer trouble shooting questions!

Emil and I at the start of the race, which was BEAUTIFUL!

We were off and without Claude, I was a little lost. I knew I wouldn’t be close at all to my PR or even really around two hours and told myself to just enjoy the race and seeing so many of my friends that I haven’t gotten the chance to run with lately! I’ve also have recently gotten back into the swing of things so I knew that putting in this many miles after not running consistently for about 2 months would be tough.

I turned around and kept looking at the sky, it was SO beautiful out and though there was a chill in the air, it was awesome! I kept running into more people I knew and it was awesome to slow down or speed up to run with them and catch up, I enjoyed chatting with everyone! Great seeing everyone out there supporting Sam, who completed his 61st marathon this year at this race!

There were constantly planes taking off as they take off from Los Angeles and fly right over this path. It was so exciting since I had just got a 17 DAY TRIP TO EUROPE FOR CHRISTMAS! Envisioning myself on a plane in August off to Europe made me SO excited.

We ran along this river run-off and it was just so nice to see the snow on the mountains in the distance and have a great run. The sky was reflecting perfectly in the water and before I knew it I was turning around and heading back towards the finish line.

The last two miles were a little tough for me as I was tired and ill-prepared, but I was excited to finish and support all that Sam worked for this past year. I was glad it wasn’t my 61st marathon of the year! It was a relief to reach the finish line and I’m glad I ran that far and picked a fun race to see so many people!

Here’s my friends Lori and Eric and I after the race, with our medals.

Emil and I had to take a new picture after the race too! Here we are with our medals! I loved my new Nike hoodie too!

Hooray for the last race of the year! I’m pretty sure I finished around 2:2x. It wasn’t chip timed, but I surely had a great time and it was seriously awesome to see so many people of the running community stay committed to Sam’s cause and what he was working towards all year. I got the chance to talk to many friends and that is what running is all about. As I was rounding the corner to the finish I was reminded what a great community runners are (when they aren’t flooding my email inbox at work with weird questions). Thanks to all those who came out and who were there to see Sam cross the finish line this year!

xoxo

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• Marathon, Running, Sports