the surf city half marathon weekend.

so planning started for this little baby many, many months ago when megan decided she was going to run her 1st full marathon! now megan and i went to nau together a million years ago and hadnt seen each other in equally that long. we lost touch a bit after college, but when she started breaking into running awhile back we reconnected through blogs/twitter/facebook. when she asked me to be there for her 1st full i knew there was nowhere else i would rather be!

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after lots of waiting and training it was finally time to hop in the car and go. megan was flying in from atlanta, her sorority sister heather was flying in from san francisco and another sister kasey from phoenix. we would all eventually make our way to megans house in chino in time for dinner friday night! i worked a 1/2 day that friday and was sooooo ready to get in my own car and have some time to myself that afternoon. the drive went super quick, even with a stop at the banana republic outelt in barstow. i got to her house super easy and the #surfcityantics began quickly.

we were taking megans parents to dinner and chose carbo-licious pf changs to be the perfect place. saturday was her moms birthday and we wanted to thank them big time for letting us crash! somehow we completely forgot to take pictures, total fail, as we chowed down while everyone got to each other. the conversation flowed no problem and we easily laughed the night away:) saturday morning the other girls were up early for a 4 mile walk/hike with megans mom, i elected to stay snuggled in bed for a little bit more sleep hehehe.

after returning from their walk/hike we tried to slow down the getting ready and heading to the expo process as much as possible. see megans bff tina (who also went to nau), was going to meet us at the expo as a huge surprise to megan. the rest of us knew she would be driving in from phoenix with her husband jon that morning but wouldnt be to the expo till about 1p. that meant dragging our heels as much as possible. so we decided to head to breakfast on the way since we were all starving. thanks to yelp we found an absolutely delicious place called the avocado house that was darn right amazing. super small and there was a line to place an order the entire time we ate breakfast. finally full we headed over to dicks to grab a few race day essentials.

while all of this was going on i was still trying to figure out my race day outfit! sooo not like me. i ordered my latest sparkle skirt a day or 2 late which meant it didnt get to my house till after i had left for california. unfortunately they were not going to be at the expo for me to pick up a replacement. fortunately though they were local to southern california and thanks to facebook i was able to place a last minute order and pick up saturday morning! this is important to the story because it added more time on to our journey to the expo. plus i just really wanted to sparkle:)

literally on our way out the door of dicks, as i was starting to get really antsy in getting to the expo (just ask megan), i got an email with directions to pick up my skirt! somehow it was actually on the way to where we needed to go so it was super easy to get. as we are literally pulling up to the house, meagn asks, are we sure this isnt a bomb? i looked at her and said god i hope not. heather in the meantime pops up from the backseat to let us know that all is ok, they have a ragnar sticker on the back of their car. apparently that means they are serial killers that are disguising bombs with sparkly things!! luckily for all of us it was not a bomb but the perfect colored skirt to match my super cute blue tank top the next day:)

mission accomplished!

we arrived to a very overcast beach in huntington abuzz with runners everywhere. it was quite late, almost 3p when we got there. tina was definitely there, we just needed to find her. so we headed to the big expo tent stopping to take a few pictures at the entrance when this happened.......

it was awesome! finally all together we headed to pick up our packets. megan and kasey were both doing the full while heather, tina, and i were signed up for the 1/2. for 3p it was still pretty packed as we wandered around ooogling all the running goodies. all weekend megan kept talking about wanting to get a jumping picture of all of us on the beach after the expo to make her facebook cover photo. i love that, that was the sole reason for the photo:) luckily jon is awesome photographer and has a great camera to help us out. he was so sweet taking as many as we all wanted until it was perfect.

at this point we really needed to head back up to chino so megan and her dad could strategize race day plans. we also needed to make a stop at dicks on the way to grab a new handle for heathers waterbottle. since her parents had dinner plans we dropped megan off while the other girls and i headed to pick up the waterbottle. once home we made a huge pasta dinner with great plans to watch spirit of the marathon for inspiration. well once the pasta tooke for-EVER to boil and the garlic bread burned we were all way too full to try and stay awake for it all. especially with a 4am wake up call the next morning, it was time for bed.

race morning came all too early sunday! it was an absolutely beautiful morning to run, couldnt have asked for a better day. but my full report you are going to have to wait till tomorrow:) it deserves a post all on its own!

i will however tell you about getting to watch these 2 amazing girls cross the finish line for their 1st full marathons. while they started out together we knew they would break apart quickly and had estimated finish times for them both, thank you megan. after each of our 1/2 finishes we were to meet up with megans family so we could see them cross in all their glory and that plan worked perfectly. i found megans boyfriend doug, who took me to where her parents were, in a great spot right near the finish line. almost right on time to the minute we say megan and her friend from grad school michael come down the finish chute!!!! she looked fantastic and i started crying for her as soon as i saw her:) all of the runners actually looked strong with huge smiles on their faces toward the finish line.

we made our way down to the finish line to collect megan before kasey came across. she was in the medical tent getting stretched out and somehow tina and heather had crossed the 1/2 almost at the same time! so glad she had friends in there:) they said she was doing great and had both set a pr with their finish times! finally megan came hobbling out with a huge smile plastered across her face. after a quick bathroom break she laid on the ground for some more stretching when we found out her official finish time, 4:58:42!! her goal was under 5 and standing, both accomplished! (check out her full recap here!)

all now hobbling we headed back to just before the finish line to see kasey. heather had gotten a text saying she was getting very close and we were sure every runner that got close to us was here haha. there was a small group of other spectators there waiting for their runner as well so everyone cheered for everyone. it was soo cool to see the sense of accomplishments on their faces as they got to that finish. then, right on time we saw her face with her sister running right next to her come down the finisher chute!!! it was amazing and i think we all cried watching her cross that line:) 

we bombared her and very stinky, very excited hugs all the way around. after a few pictures we all decided it was time to get the heck out of there to eat. i was straving and was having serious ragnar flashbacks, it had been about 4 hours since i finished and i was in definite need of real food asap. luckily we decided to eat near the beach and doug was able to drive so none of had too lol. he even went across the parking lot to get the car as we waited where the shuttle dropped us off and the dropped us at the door of bjs while he parked only a few spots away, sooo sweet.

finishers!!!

there was a lot of eating, and again not a lot of pictures taken, serious blogger fail. we headed back to megans house with full bellies to shower and throw our things in the car to head to a superbowl party! i was drivin back to vegas after and heather had a plane to catch that night back up to oakland. the party was a blast with megan and dougs friends, they invited us in and fed us no problem! everyone we met all weeekend was so incredibly nice:) i headed back up the hill after the game was over and made it safely about midnight. thankfully i was off monday so i fully took advantage of a recovery day on the couch!

as i hung out during the day at home i couldnt help think what an awesome weekend it was. being surrounded by nau friends always makes everything better:) plus to see megan and doug so cute together, it takes serious dedication to spectate a marathon and he never complained once. and i got to meet tina and jon, he even biked around the entire course to get action running shots of her, so sweetness. and i got to meet heather and kasey who adopted me into their jokes and inside fun without any questions. it was one of those weekends you really feel like you belong somewhere:) thank you all so much for making 1/2 marathon #12 soo awesome!! with a musical treat to forever remember the weekend...