Weekend Recap...LA Marathon edition!

Such a fun weekend!!

FRIDAY

I went to a Girl's Night Out hosted by my church (LOVE). It was such a fun evening of food, fellowship, great speakers and singing. On my way home, I saw the super bright lights shining everywhere to mark the mile markers for the LA Marathon! Three of the lights were right near our home - very cool. There were 124 total lights and 7.5 million lumens!! Jerold decided to climb on the roof to take a picture and right at that moment... the lights went out. Turns out they were illuminated for just 2 hours, which is actually a long time considering how many lights were used.

The media reported that it was possible to see the lights from space! It was a really, really neat moment and a brilliant way to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the LA Marathon.

Jerold proposed (Super short version: he had never, ever run a marathon, secretly trained, planned it precisely, ran with a ring for 26.2 miles, proposed at the end, biggest surprise of my life!!!) at the marathon after we ran it in March 2000, so this race is extra special to us!!

Saturday

LA Marathon Expo!

I wrote about this in detail and if you missed it, you can read about it HERE!

Quickly...

Bart Yasso's informative talk about running the LA Marathon....

Super cool editor of Zelle!

Hanging out with Olympian Deena Kastor...!!! 

And yes, just before I took this picture, SBG spilled a portion of her drink on me - hence the stain on my shirt. Fun times with my sweet 2 year old - if only that didn't happen before I took this photo... :)

Sunday

Race day!!

The runners were running hard down San Vicente approaching mile 24. They all looked so strong despite the heat and luckily it was a bit cooler today! I absolutely love running on this beautiful, long, tree lined street. Not a day goes by that you don't see runners loping along west toward the Pacific Ocean which is exactly where these runners were headed!! GOOO RUNNERS!!

Mile 24! It was so fun to cheer on the runners and tell them that the ocean is just down the street and the finish line is only 2 miles away! :)

If you visit Santa Monica, be sure to run on this street - you will absolutely love it!

Meanwhile, I was searching the crowd of runners for my friends!! Turns out one got by me and I thought I missed the other friend also, when SHE spotted me!! She yells out my name (during HER race - incredible) and I was so, so happy. I immediately started very loudly cheering for her and in my emotions, didn't get a picture! It goes by so fast!! Anyway, she did great and I am so glad I got to see her!

Here I am at the last .2 miles before the finish line....

...And this is what they have to gaze at when they finish!!

The security was incredibly tight and you couldn't get near the finish line! So, I waited for Jerold and the kiddos to arrive and decided to take a selfie...

Then we biked home!

The kiddos were so tired from all the biking! (their bikes are off to the side). Here is what they thought about biking on a super hot day in March...

And we totally stopped to have lunch and cold, cold drinks :) Josh then asked if we could move to Alaska...!

We made it home and while everyone was relaxing and SBG napped, I went to the pool for a great session of pool running (with hard intervals!)...

And now it's time to get ready for another exciting week!!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend that was full of running, racing for some of you and relaxing!!

Happy Monday friends! :)

Happiness Is Running Life!

xo,

Natalie