Congratulations, Jen!

This morning my friend Jen walked the Nike Women’s Half-Marathon{.broken_link}. I was supposed to be there with her, but they “sold out” of slots probably a few hours before I tried signing up. As I couldn’t be there to walk with her, the least I could do was be there to cheer her on.

As you can see, it was splendid weather for a nice little walk across the city. It’s only overcast and foggy, which is to be expected down along the Pacific, and wasn’t really cold, wet and windy. Marc and I got there around 10am, fully expecting that we would have another hour to wait, at least. Then the call came in at 10:15: “I’m at mile 13!” Excitement in her voice, panic in mine as I told Marc that she was approaching the end and we were at the other end of the beach nowhere near the finish line. CRAP! We scooted in that direction–running at times–and eventually found the end of the race. Unfortunately, we had missed seeing Jen cross the line. 🙁 But we were still there for hugs and congrats.

And here’s our lovely fleet-footed friend! Now I ask you, does this look like a woman who just spent the morning walking 13.1 miles? No, it certainly does not. Fresh as a daisy, she is. Though she may be feeling it in the morning, today it doesn’t look like it’s affected her at all. And the time she made! At least an hour less than what she’d expected. When the race started she got the standard adrenaline jolt and set her pace much faster than she had in training. However, having gone walking with Jen I can tell you that even this faster pace wasn’t a stretch for her. She’s a quick one, that girl.

All that walkin’ can make a gal hungry. Directly across from the finish line was the Beach Chalet Brewery and Restaurant. Marc had been there and knew the place to have great fried calamari (and so-so beer), so off we went to get Jen’s batteries recharged. And the juice which charges the batteries? Well there’s coffee, of course. And a celebratory glass of champagne, naturally. And the aforementioned calamari. And this heirloom tomato and buffalo mozzarella sandwich on focaccia with olive-caper sauce, coleslaw and house-made “root vegetable” chips. Looking at this picture I’d say that Jen has a future as a culinary photographer. Keep that in mind should that whole Genentech thing fall though, eh?

Since we were with a member of the Fletcher clan, service at the Chalet was positively glacial. Or we could rack it up to the restaurant being very busy serving a voracious horde of women marathoners. Whatever. Regardless, lunch took about an hour and a half. I’m sure Jen was very glad for the opportunity to get off her feet for a little while. When asked what she’d like to do next, her (quite reasonable) reply was, “Anything were I don’t have to walk a lot.” Unfortunately, that’s all I know how to do in the city.

So instead we just ambled back to our vehicles, parked a few blocks away. Marc, gentleman that he is, took Jen back to her car on the other side of the city. But first he took this picture of Jen and me. We think we’re quite cute indeed, and we may be right about that. But we still might be trying to work the camera just a bit too much here. 😉 Whatever. We’re still cute. And she still rocks.

Jen, many congratulations! We’re all really proud of you and your accomplishment! YAY, JEN!

BTW, Jen, all of these pics are available as larger versions if you need.