New Year, New Home

I have now been a San Diego resident for almost two years! Wow, the time has flown by! When I first moved here I was living in corporate housing for a couple months up in the burbs near my office. The place I was in was pretty nice and it crossed my mind to sign a lease there, but after several years in the burbs of San Jose and Phoenix, I was ready to return to city life.

A friend of mine from college that had lived in the San Diego for a while helped me scout out several new neighborhoods to try to find an apartment. In the end, I chose Hillcrest which he originally described as “being a lot like San Francisco”. When we first drove around I agreed! The streets and businesses and restaurants and vibe of the place did remind me of San Francisco, and it was right by Balboa Park where I could run and walk my dogs. One thing he forgot to mention up front though was that Hillcrest wasn’t just like San Francisco as a city, it was actually more like the Castro District of San Francisco. Haha - I think most of you know what I mean.

I loved the neighborhood and fell in love with the second apartment that I looked at. It was right by the park, had a pool, was cute and modern, and had stainless steel appliances and granite countertops! The only downside? My apartment was only 500 square feet! Yikes that was tight! I ended up getting a storage unit downtown and put everything that wouldn’t fit in my apartment into storage. (Sometime over the summer I had a little scare at my storage unit where they called me to tell me a pipe burst in the building and that the lower level had flooded. Oh no! My stuff! It turned out that the water had missed my unit (THANK GOODNESS!!), but the whole incident really made me think about the value of my “stuff” and what it meant. To read more about that check out my blog “Its Just Stuff Right?”)

My Super-Mod Kitchen & Dining Counter

Close-Up Living Room
(Too close to the TV to Wii!!)

Living Room - Other View

I was able to get used to having a small space and the dogs and I got used to living in “urban efficiency”. We loved being near the park and I ran and walked the dogs in the park almost every day. Towards the end of last year though as my lease came due I thought about trying to find a bigger place in the same neighborhood. I started looking in a few of the neighborhoods surrounding the park but was having trouble doing an effective job looking with my work and travel schedule.

Enter Jodie .......
the best pet sitter in the WHOLE WORLD!!

My wonderful petsitter Jodie from Go Fido Go (who makes having two dogs and traveling for work a possibility and not a nightmare) offered to help me look for a new place. Not only did she look for listings with me online, she drove by a few places during the day to see if they looked as good as they did in person as they did in the ad. Can you believe it? She has to be the nicest person in the whole world! Thank you Jodie!

After a couple weeks of searching and finding a couple places that seemed like they were “it” but that didn’t end up working out ..... I found THE place! I came to look at a place that I found in a craigslist ad which was just an average, boring, square apartment. When I got to the location there happened to be three vacancies on this same property with the first one not making my screening criteria on craigslist because it was a bit out of the price range that I had set during my search. The property manager took me to this “expensive” place first (for the hell of it) and then two others after that. Um, when I walked into the first place I think my jaw dropped to the floor. The place was HUGE! And it felt like being inside of a house!

Huge Open Living Room

Huge Bedroom w/Fireplace & Patio

It took me a few minutes to realize this apartment was so grand because it was actually part of a house converted into an apartment. We then looked at the two other apartments I'd originally identified, but neither compared to the first place I saw! I was torn for a bit about going for the nicer place because I was planning on moving into a place that was a little bit less per month ........ but then I thought about the fact that this huge apartment meant that I could take my stuff out of storage ...... so overall even though this huge apartment was outside of the price range I had originally set, when you backed out the price of storage it was just about what I was looking for. I'll take it!

Anyways, long story short, I took the big huge apartment that I fell in love with at first site! And I guess I shouldn’t feel too bad, this new place is still cheaper than my old 500 square foot apartment! They say it’s a renter’s market right now and I think its so true!

My Mansion!
(Well, my 1/4 of it!)

Loads of Boxes from Storage

It was hard to manage the move around the holidays and my work schedule, but finally two weeks ago I did it! The dogs and I moved into our new place. The second the dogs walked in they sniffed every inch of the place and then started running back and forth and all over the apartment playing! Aww .. melt my heart! I hadn’t seen them play in so long! Mostly because they didn’t’ have room to.

Living Room & Dining Room

Big Bedroom & Fireplace
(Perfect for storage of an exercise ball!)

Private Patio to Shared Yard

We’re all settled in now and I love my new apartment more and more each day. (I think my dogs do as well.)

Thanks so much Jodie for helping me find this awesome place! The dogs say thank you too!

2009: A Year In Review

This year has been a pretty good year for me, especially in comparison to 2008. While 2008 wasn’t all bad, there were many challenging moments and a lot changes and adjustments. The most striking of course being my return to being a brunette! OMG I KNOW! haha (Well, it was *kind of* a big change after 10-15? years of blonde highlights!) :o)

2009 Travel

I traveled a lot this year, but not quite as much as last year. Though both years of flown miles in US Airways have resulted in me achieving Gold Elite status, this year I just barely made the cut (50,385 preferred miles of 50,000 required) while last year I just came shy of making Platinum Elite status (71,562 preferred miles of 75,000 required .. DARN! SO CLOSE! I knew I shouldn’t have taken those two Southwest flights! GRR!!!)

The cities I got to visit this year were a mixture of old and new. The old being New York, Lake Tahoe, Austin, Paris, Boston, Baltimore, New Orleans, Arlington, Washington DC, Sonoma, Phoenix, and finally Charlotte. The new being two cities in Canada! I had never been to Canada before and oddly enough went there twice this year for tradeshows for work. The first was in Vancouver and the second in Toronto.

2009 Races

I ran a number of races this year including a 5K, 5 mile Turkey Trot, a 15K trail race, two half marathons, and two full marathons!

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And now, a brief review of each month and significant events during that month. Are you sitting down? Do you have your popcorn? Is your DVR set in case you read this three times and miss your favorite show because its so entertaining??

January 2009

In January I thought .. what could I do to totally limit my freedom from work this year? How about using up 5 of the 10 days I get for vacation for the whole year? Okay lets do it! Let’s head to New York for a week! David and I headed up to the Big Apple for 5 days to enjoy the sunny warm weather that New Yorkers enjoy each January. Okay can you sense the sarcasm? It was freezing and the weather was awful the whole week there, but we went with a purpose and had a great time. Really!!

Times Square New York

We are both big fans of Malcolm Gladwell, author of the Tipping Point, Blink, and his latest book at that time – Outliers! I saw that he was speaking on his new book at the 92^nd Street Y and bought tickets as a birthday gift for David. The book itself is really interesting and I’d recommend it, along with his others, to just about anyone!! His latest book (at that time) "Outliers" looks into how people become successful. The format of his appearance at the 92nd Street Y was a conversational interview where he discussed his book and answered questions with a moderator. After the conclusion of the interview/discussion he then did a book signing! Luckily we both had fresh copies of our books for him to sign!! Yay!! (Nerds!)

Meeting Malcolm Gladwell

After New York I zipped back across the country to Lake Tahoe for my company’s annual sales meeting. We stayed at Squaw Valley resort, home of the 1955 Winter Olympics! It was an absolutely beautiful resort and on our free afternoon I got to go skiing for the first time in years! What a great trip! I love my job!

Squaw Valley - Lake Tahoe

February 2009

February (being the shortest month of the year of course) came and went fairly quickly. The most notable event of February 2009 was running the Austin Half Marathon! This was David’s first half marathon and my sixth. (For additional reading on my Half Marathon Protégées, check out my blog on Sharing My Obsession.)

Austin Half Marathon - Before & After

March 2009

In March of this year I ran my second race, and David (my favorite race partner) was my companion. We ran the XTERRA Black Mountain Race in the Black Mountain Regional Park just east of Del Mar (which is just North of San Diego). I had only run one trail race several years before and was not quite mentally prepared for what this race would entail. (EEK!!) We started out the race running on a trail as a pack, then thinned out to a single file line, then we were able to spread out a bit as the trail widened, and most of the race after that proceeded as normal. We ran up and down and UP and down hills, ran through a small creek (EWE!), and then finally ran about a mile and a half UPHILL to the finish line. Um yeah, I don’t think I’ll run that race again. I find racing on flat ground challenging enough! It was fun and different though and I’m glad we did it. I enjoy new experiences!

After the race, we went to my first World Classic Baseball game! Korea and Japan were in the finals in 2009 which happened to be played at the Padre’s home Petco Park in San Diego. Lured by the bold design of the “K” hats that the Korea team had, I decided to become a Korea fan. Go Korea!

World Baseball Classic

"K" For KOREA!

April 2009

I made my first trip of the year home to San Francisco in April for Easter. I drove up with my dogs (and thanks to my company observing Good Friday as a holiday) I was able to enjoy a nice 3-day weekend in my hometown. Easter morning my BFF Garley and I attended an Easter service at the Grace Cathedral in San Francisco and then met up again later that morning for brunch with my dad, her husband, and son.

Easter Service at Grace Cathedral

Easter Brunch at the Cliff House

May 2009

May was a big month for me this past year, mostly because my 10^th marathon was coming around! About a month before the marathon I received one of the marathon’s newsletters advertising the “Foot Locker Challenge”.

About the Foot Locker Challenge:

Known as the "race within the race," The Foot Locker County Challenge is a unique program in which local Rock 'n' Roll Marathon runners are selected to represent their communities within San Diego County at the race. The group of six will run the first half of the marathon as a team. At the 13-mile mark, each member of the team is free to break away from the pack, and the participant who finishes the marathon in the fastest time captures the title of Foot Locker County Challenge Champion.

The winner of the Foot Locker County Challenge will receive a prize package including a two-night at one of San Diego's finest hotels and an exclusive trophy from Tiffany & Co. All six participants in the Foot Locker County Challenge will receive VIP treatment throughout race weekend and will also receive exclusive Foot Locker County Challenge uniforms courtesy of Sugoi.

Registered runners living within San Diego County who expect to finish the Rock 'n' Roll Marathon in an estimated time of 3:45:00 and 4:00:00 hours are eligible to complete a questionnaire about their running experiences and explain why they should be chosen to represent their community. Once the questionnaires are reviewed, a select group of applicants are interviewed via phone and in-person by a panel of Foot Locker and Elite Racing representatives.

As soon as I got the email about this challenge I knew I wanted to apply! I wrote in my story, submitted my application, and about a month later I received a call from someone in PR at Foot Locker who was calling to interview me! OMG! OMG! I then made it through the initial phone screening with Foot Locker and was then invited to an in-person interview with the Competitor Group (who runs the Rock N Roll Marathons) in San Diego. About a week after the interview with the Competitor Group I received a call with the good news … I made the challenge team! OMG! OMG! Being chosen for the team was an amazing honor and fun, exclusive experience that made my 10^th marathon that much more special. For more details about the Foot Locker Challenge team or my marathon experience, you can read my blog "Marathon #10 - Check!"

Foot Locker Challenge Team 2009

June 2009

June is one of my favorite months in the year! First of all, it’s the month that holds two very special birthdays – mine and my dad’s! On the same day! Twinsies!! Growing up June also always marked the end of the school year, the beginning of summer, and the start of a few months of fun and freedom. Whooeee!

Happy Birthday!

This year I decided to come home for my birthday and put together a joint celebration with my dad. We planned a BBQ in Golden Gate Park and invited a bunch of friends. David and his brother Ken made the trip north with me by car, with no dogs for a change! Wow! We stopped in Isla Vista on the way up (Go Gauchos! UCSB4LIFE!) and had lunch at one of my favorite places of all times.. Silver Greens!

We had a pretty packed weekend in San Francisco planned. We had me & my dad's birthday BBQ celebration in the park, we went out in the city, wevdid a quick tour of the major tourist spots in the city for Ken, and went to an A’s vs.Oriole’s game in Oakland. Whew! For more details you can read my blog about the week with Ken & David in CA, including the trip to SF. (A Week of K.A. in CA).

Beautiful San Francisco Day

The trip home and the BBQ were a lot of fun, but my adventures in June were not over yet! As a birthday gift, my mom flew me out to Paris to visit her for a week! I hadn’t been to Paris since I was maybe 8 or 10 years old and could barely remember anything besides eating masses of choclate croissants! The trip was a lot of fun and it was a different and enjoyable experience to be visiting Europe for the first time as an “adult”. More details about my trip are in my blog entry "A Week in Paris: Silver Flats: 7 Ways in 7 Days"

Notre Dame - Paris, France

July 2009

July of last year was the second month in the year that I didn’t travel … at all! I spent the majority of my weekends relaxing, taking my dogs to the dog park, hanging out by the pool, or hanging out by the beach.

Sunny Day at the Dog Park

My Summer Best Friend - Tan Hello Kitty!!

(Thanks Johanne!!)

One significant thing did occur in July, though it was more like the start of quest than an actual event. After a lifetime of solitary faith and religious exploration, I finally decided that I’d like to start going to a church regularly. I looked online for churches closest to me and checked a few out. The first few either scared me or made me feel uncomfortable because they seemed too gloom and doom or way too conservative for my taste. After attending those I decided that maybe a “hip” church was what I wanted. I found one like in downtown San Diego but when I went there I still felt totally out of place. I decided to swing the other way and then check out a Methodist church upon the suggestion of my dad, but decided I didn’t want to bring the average age of their congregation down from 87. No offense to the seniors of the world!

In the end, I found something that was exactly what I was looking for – The Rock Church! I love this church! The first time I went I was a bit intimidated by the size of the church (seats 3,500 and has 5 services a day) and the spectacle that it seemed to be (rock band, light effects, big camera boom arm swinging around taping things like its an episode of Oprah), but ended up enjoying the anonymity of things, the vibe, the message, and the pastors. I enjoyed the sermons and liked the feeling of the church, and after a couple months of searching this one felt right at home! Ahhh!

August 2009

I was back on the road in August and hit Baltimore, Boston, and Vancouver, Canada. While in Boston I got to have lunch right around the corner from the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Wow! That was neat! I of course had to be a running nerd and take pictures!

Boston Marathon Finish Line!

A couple weeks after the Baltimore/Boston trip I headed north to Vancouver. I wasn’t sure what to expect of Vancouver or Canada as a whole, but I was pleasantly surprised. Vancouver was a beautiful city with a really nice downtown area and a great selection of restaurants.

Vancouver Convention Center Jenga Wall!

September 2009

(You still hanging in there with me reading this? Wow, either I’m a fascinating writer or someone’s procrastinating at work! Gotcha! Jk

September brought me back to the great Northeast. As with my visit the previous month to Boston, I arrived to the news of “oh, too bad you’re just coming now. The weather is supposed to be bad. But it was *JUST* so beautiful earlier in the week!” Sigh .. great. Cold and rainy, my favorite!

I was in Boston for work for two events and had a day off in between the two. This weekend happened to coincide with my first scheduled 20 mile run of two in my training plan for the Marine Corps Marathon. While trying to figure out where to run 20 miles in the Boston area one of my Nor’easter running friends Martin suggested that I could run a half-marathon he was running in Plymouth and then run 7 more miles after that. HAHAHA! That’s crazy right? Well guess who did it? And David flew in for the weekend too to join in on the craziness.

It rained. We ran. We conquered.

David Beating the Rain

For more details check out my Boston blog "20 Miles in the Rain".

Upon returning from Boston I started my first week of twelve as a coach for Girls On The Run! More details on this blog "26 Girls on the Run".

October 2009

Since I apparently hadn’t had enough cold for the Fall, in October I head back east … back to Canada! The other side of Canada this time .. Toronto! Toronto was also a fun city, though of the two I prefer Vancouver.

Happy 40th Birthday!
(My coworkers sent me a gag 40th b-day cake. Har har!)

A couple weeks after the trip to Vancouver the second huge running event of my year rolled around … the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, DC and Arlington, VA! This was marathon #11 for me and I was running with a partner for the first time ever! David was crazy enough to agree to train with me and run this as his very first marathon. We trained for 18 weeks and during that time also raised money for the organization Back On My Feet. (more details on "Running for a Reason")

Marine Corps Marathon 2009

Each marathon has been a special experience for me, and when I ran on the Foot Locker Challenge team in June I thought that my 10th race was my crowning event!

I was wrong.

Running WITH David in such a historic race (with the incredible support of his family) was soooo much better. This was by far my favorite marathon ever! (for more details see my blog on the Marine Corps Marathon.)

November 2009

As the leaves changed from green to yellow and red and orange to brown … my year of business travel winded down to an end. Whew! Finally! I actually like traveling for work, but sometimes I just hit a point where I’m tired and just want to be home on the couch with my dogs and DVR. I know, I'm old.

My last business trip for the year was to New Orleans for a tradeshow. The trip was enjoyable but I tired quickly of purely fried food. Yuck! It was near impossible to order a dinner that didn’t have something deep fried in it! EWE! I’m surprised that they haven’t figured out a way to deep fry lettuce yet! They’ve mastered the tomatoes, pickles, and green beans!

I saw a couple of “celebrities” on this trip which made things a bit exciting! For more details check out my blog "Four Days in New Orleans"..

Street Car - New Orleans, LA

Soon after coming home from New Orleans it was time to pack my bags again and head out. Sigh.. This time by car, and with my dogs. We were headed home to San Francisco for Thanksgiving! I ran a Turkey Trot the morning of Thanksgiving, spent Thanksgiving day and dinner with my dad, and then headed up to Sonoma for two days of wine tasting! There is nothing better than being "Home for the Holidays"!

Thanksgiving Lunch @ Max's Cafe

December 2009

The year went by quicker than any previous ones I could remember. Before I knew it, the calendar said December! Wow!

My first trip of this month was out to MD/VA to celebrate David’s birthday and to take my first trip in TEN years back to my grandparents old farm. It was truly a "Walk Down Memory Lane".

As luck would have it, I got to Maryland ust in time for the first snowfall! Yippee! JK I kid, I kid! Man,I need to stop calling the cold weather spirits out of hiding! This California girl can’t take the cold!!

My Grandparent's Farm
(New Windsor, MD)

The weekend following my trip to MD/VA marked the end of the 12-week Girls On The Run season and the final event – the Jingle Bell 5K! So bittersweet! The event (and the whole experience coaching) was really amazing and was one of the best experiences I’d had all year!! Yep, it came close to beating the Marine Corps Marathon experience. For more details about our GOTR finale 5k, check out my blog "Girls On The Run 5K".

Girls On The Run - 5K Event

This Jingle Bell 5K was my last blog entry prior to this one, meaning it was the last significant event of record this year! No wait ... Christmas and New Years Eve also occurred in 2009! I’m actually on the plane back from that trip right now and I’m thinking the holidays might get a blog entry of their very own next week.

So for now, that’s all folks! 2009 was a good year for me, and hopefully it was for you too. Its incredible to think that its now 2010. Even 5 years ago that date seemed so futuristically funny. And here we are already, a new decade!

Happy New Years and best wishes to you for a great 2010!

Girls On The Run 5K

This past weekend marked the end of the Fall Girls On The Run (GOTR) season for 2009. (sniff sniff) I started as head coach for this 12 week program in September at one of the six locations in the San Diego chapter. We have had meetings twice a week for a total of 24 sessions, with our final event being a 5K race.

GOTR Girls

About GOTR

GOTR focuses on “Educating and preparing girls for a lifetime of self-respect and healthy living”. Girls on the Run is a non-profit prevention program that encourages preteen girls to develp self-respect and healthy lifestyles through running. The curriculum addresses all aspects of a girl’s development – their physical, emotional, mental, social, and spiritual well-being.

The twelve week program has broken up into three main sections which focused on:

• All About Me: Getting to know who I am and what I stand for
• Building My Team: Understanding the importance of cooperation
• Community Begins With Me: Learning about community and designing our community project

Working on an Exercise

Practice 5Ks

We had two practice 5Ks during the season where the girls had the majority of the time to just run. In our first practice 5K I brought the girls Gatorade and was AMAZED by how much they loved it. Seriously Gatorade turned out to be preteen girl crack. They couldn’t get enough of it! I didn’t get it at all! Gatorade is kind of bitter and weird tasting! I mean I like it now but I can’t imagine how it appealed so well to the candy palate of a young girl! Anyways, it worked, they loved it, and the chance of getting one more little cup of Gatorade totally spurred them on to run each additional lap.

GATORADE!

In our second 5K the girls did even better. In the first practice 5K we had 8 of 20 girls complete all twelve laps (1/4 mile each = 3 miles ~ 5K). In our second practice 5K we had 13 of 20 girls complete all twelve laps .. and 5 girls run more than that!

Season Continues

As the season continued from All About Me, to Building My Team, to Community Begins With Me, we got to a session where we did a group Community Project which I covered in my blog GOTR Community Service Project . The girls all created holiday cards for members of the military in the “Holiday Cards for Heroes” program and chronically ill children from the “Make a Child Smile” program. The girls all had a lot of fun and I hope that their cute little cards made those special people far away smile.

Creating Holiday Cards

Season Ends

On our last meeting of the season (session 24) we didn’t run at all and spent our last session together having a season end celebration. One of the other coaches brought balloons, cupcakes, and ice cream (OH MY!) and another coach and I put together awards for each of the girls.

Each girl received a spirit award for the season which related to her as an individual in our group. (Okay .. I had 26 girls in this group and had a tiring time coming up with 26 suitable/cool/exciting awards!!) Some examples of the awards are:

• Shining Spirit
• Running Wizard
• Mega Miler
• Super Smiler
• Future Marathoner

Jingle Bell 5K

Our season end celebration was last Thursday, and this past Saturday was the finale event .... the 5K! Luckily the 5K was in Balboa Park close to my neighborhood! Whooo hooo! The girls ran in a public race which is known for its holiday costumes and spirit. From the website I saw that people dressed up as Santa, Reindeer, elves, and other random red and green creatures. This race would be the location where all six of the GOTR San Diego groups came together and participated in a “real” 5K.

Getting Ready for the 5K

Funny – about a week before the race one of the girl’s father called me and asked about when the race was, where it was, and general information about it. Then he asked me how far a 5K was. I said "well, its 3.1 miles". He said “wow.. five miles? Okay .. okay .. wow.. five miles huh? Okay .. I can do that. .. Huh..” (HAHA!) After being a runner for so many years and after running so many marathons (11 thank you!) its hard for me to see 3 miles as being far! Also, after seeing all these little 8-11 year olds run 2-3 miles several times in the past few months its even harder to realize that running 3 miles can be totally out of the comprehension of someone! I guess for some people who never run though even running a mile can be a challenge.

Best Race Costumes!

As the race approached we started getting the girls geared up for the race. Each girl is supposed to run the race with a “Running Buddy” who can either be her parent or someone who signs up to volunteer just for that day. As it turned out 20 of the 25 girls running the race had their parent(s) running with them. Only 5 girls needed a running buddy with whom I paired up a volunteer. Most of us coaches had signed up as well to be available but in the end we were able to run alone.

We met an hour before the race to get everyone together and stretched, performed our group cheer (ours was the best and loudest!) and then got ready for the race. Since I wasn’t paired up with a runner and hadn’t run a 5K in a year (and before that not for 3 years) I really wanted RACE! In my last 5K (Run and Stride for Pride 5K 2008) I came in first in my division (whoo hoo!) with at time of 23:49. My goal for this race was 22 minutes!

I started out the race FAST and was charging along feeling eat when I looked down at my Garmin GPS watch and saw that I had run a sub-7:00 pace mile in the first mile. Great! But not really… I don’t have the ability to maintain that pace and I knew that because of that I would pay later. I slowed down a bit and managed a sub 8:00 pace for the second mile.. but a little after that my fatigue and shortness of breath set in. I actually had to WALK (in a 3 mile race! FOR SHAME) for a bit to catch my breath before starting up again. I felt like such a sheepish shame! I finally picked back up into a run and crossed the finish line at 24:09 with a 8:01 pace! (Also being the first GOTR associated runner to cross! Whooo hoo!)

My Running Race Face

As soon as I crossed the finish line I grabbed a water and then went back to a spot just before the last turn before you could see the finish line where I could cheer on the rest of my girls. The fastest girl in our group (a little 9 year old) flew by not that much later! After her I waited a bit and probably saw one girl every few minutes.

More Cowbell!

I’m not sure if I can describe adequately what a wonderful experience it was to stand there and see each girl approach the finish line. For some of the girls the race was a piece of cake. They had run a 5K before and knew they could do it. Sure they got more excited and gave me a big smile when they saw me yelling and cheering for them (cowbell waving madly overhead) as they came around that last bend, but it wasn’t them that were so moving to me ... it was seeing the ones that I think didn't know that they could do it who really made me smile. I could see a change on so many of their faces as soon as they caught site of me, and then the finish line just past me. You could see on their face a look of WOW! I DID IT! I ran a 5K!!

The Finish Line

Several girls were already running as they approached me and just smiled bigger as they passed me. Others were running slowly or walking in the last stretch but when they saw me ringing my cowbell and shouting their name they suddenly perked up and took off for the finish. A couple of them actually looked like a bat out of hell as they passed me! All-in-all I can’t think of the last time I smiled so hard and tried to hold back tears! (Okay, actually I can … seeing David’s parents at our marathon waving big signs over their head at location after location really touched my heart...more details and pictures at my blog entry on the Marine Corps Marathon 2009) But these little girls, warmed my heart a bit more.

After a while the crowd started to thin out and more and more time passed in between each girl. I started to curse myself for not having my roster with me where I could have crossed each girl off who had passed me! I did a quick mental inventory and thought of some of the slower girls and remembered whether I saw them or not. As 30 minutes turned into 40, and then 50, and then an hour.. I then started to think okay.. where are my last few girls? I’d see GOTR shirts approaching and would get excited and then would feel let down when I realized it was a girl from another site.

When I saw the second to last girl she was waking with her mom, looking down at the ground, and looking somewhat dejected. I cheered loudly for her and suddenly she perked up, started pumping her arms and just took off! As her mom passed us she smiled and said “I needed you there doing that the whole time!”. After her I still had to keep an eye out for our very last girl. About ten minutes later she approached with her mom kind of walking … but with some cheering she started to jog a bit.. and then they both started running again and plowed on to the finish line! I ran to the finish line after her too and saw her get her medal and a big hug from her mom, her Running Buddy. Okay .. teary moment again! She looked so proud, her mom looked so proud, and it was just such a sweet moment.

Changing Lives

I didn’t run a 5K until I was in my 20’s, and at that point it was cool to me, but nothing life changing. Life changing running came for me the first time I finished a half marathon .. and then a full marathon. For me, running a distance race was something I never thought in a million years that I could ever do. Distance running for me has truly been life changing and its something I would recommend to everyone I know. It changes your life when you cross those finish lines, and its amazing.

After seeing these young girls complete their first 5K, I felt like I was witness and a part of a life-changing experience of their own. As one of their coaches I also felt honored to be part of that experience. More than that, I was so proud that they had accomplished this and experienced something like this so young in their lives! Some people to this day have never run three miles, but these girls did it! And along the way they learned a number of important life lessons.

Group Discussion Time

After the race I received a number of emails from the girls parents that really moved me. I know this program had a purpose outside of running, but I didn’t’ really understand the effect that it could have had before the parents had contacted me with stories specifically about their girls. I had hoped that the girls had had fun in our season, and I had hoped that they’d be proud of the fact that they had run a 5K, but I hadn’t really thought about the bigger picture effect of what this program could do for them as a person and their sense of themselves and who they were.

Some of the messages that really made me stop and say WOW:

“My daughter had a fantastic run yesterday!! Thank you so much. She was in awe of her own accomplishment. She kept saying how proud she was of herself and held her medal high with a big grin! This was such an amazing opportunity for her! Thank you immensely and we plan to be back at it in February!”

“Thank you for such a wonderful experience with Girls on the Run. My daughter loved the whole program. She loved going to each session and learning new things as well as meeting new friends. She loved the camaraderie of the team. I really think the program helped her with self esteem and confidence. Sometimes it is hard for her being the tallest girl in her class, but I can definitely see a difference in her since the beginning of the program. Thank you to you and all the coaches for providing such a fun way to be healthy and a strong girl. She was very proud to cross the finish line on Saturday and we were so excited to see it happen. My husband enjoyed it so much he wants to sign up for another 5K with her!”

“My daughter is going through a tough time at school right now, and GOTR is such a bright spot for her. She LOVES it. I hesitated to sign her up because she was only a couple of days older than your cutoff, but I'm so glad I let her talk me into it. Running has been so great for me and I am so happy that it "works" for her too.”

Its really amazing to me to see how impactful this program has been on the girls. The design of the program makes it mostly fun with games and fun exercises. Through the program and exercises the girls are actually learning though, and in addition to that they are running! There isn’t anything bad I can say about running! In my own life running has been the greatest thing I could have started to do for myself. In addition to helping me be a healthier person, it has also helped me build self-confidence by showing me that I could do something I NEVER thought I could do if I set a goal, developed a plan, and dedicated myself. It has also became something that I really enjoy, and its a great way to get outside, to workout, to burn off stress, and to meet new people. Running isn’t for everyone, but for me .. it has worked. And I can’t think of anything more rewarding in life than to take what has changed my life for the better and share it with others. In this situation, a group of 8-11 year old girls.

I love the whole GOTR program, the San Diego chapter, my fellow coaches, and my group of Fall season girls. I’m so thankful to have been involved in this opportunity and I’m looking forward to continuing my involvement. The next season of GOTR starts in February and I’m looking forward to coaching again! In addition to coaching again I was also asked by a couple of the directors to become more involved with the organization and to join their board of directors! What a dream come true! I can’t wait to see what this opportunity holds. :o)