On Sunday, April 26th Melissa ran in her first ever half-marathon. It was the La Jolla Half Marathon and 5K. Kevin and I participated in the 5K. The months and weeks leading up to the marathon were very busy ones for Melissa as she is a 4th grade teacher, is taking extended classroom training, organizing the 4th grade trip to Sacramento, coordinating the San Juan Capistrano field trip and is very involved in church ministries. There are not enough hours in the day for Melissa to do what she does much less train for a marathon. Training time came at a premium so there wasn’t as much training as she would have liked. Before Sundays race she had only run about 5 miles straight before. One good thing though, her neighborhood is very hilly so she was running on hills in those 5 miles that she would run. Well, the half-marathon was 13 miles. Melissa said that she was good for the first 7 or so miles and then she started to hit her wall. The La Jolla Half-Marathon is know as one of the more difficult as it has some very steep hills. About mile 9 she wasn’t sure if she was going to make it but she pushed on through and kept going. Kevin and I were waiting for her at the finish line. I was so excited when Kevin told me that he had spotted her nearing the finish gate. We are so proud of her for finishing and hanging in there. She’s not certain if she’ll try another but I know she felt accomplishment at the fact that she stuck with it and finished. Now she has a neat medal, t-shirt, pictures and memories to keep with her! ….Note…. in the background of this pictures you can actually see some of the course that she ran that was hilly.
MELISSA CROSSING THE FINISH LINE
