Bev's birthday

Today is my friend Bev's birthday. We met in 1994 when we both lived in Houston and worked at Compaq. She was in the office next to mine, and through that good fortune I made an excellent friend. Bev is indirectly responsible for getting me into running, and other things like taking Japanese lessons. We've traveled to Europe and on ski trips to Breckenridge and Lake Tahoe.

She and her husband moved away to the Sacramento area, and I moved to the Seattle area. I visit occasionally - for three years (1999 - 2001) I timed my visits during the first week of October in order to run in the Sacramento half-marathon. My favorite story about Bev is from the 2001 half-marathon.

I got into town and had to pick up my race packet, so Bev drove me to the small expo. While we were there, she mentioned that she had been thinking of doing this event with me... which came as a huge surprise because she gave birth to her second son via C-section a mere 11 weeks prior to the event, and obviously hadn't been training at all since!

She did sign up and we started the race together. She immediately said I should go ahead while she kept a slower pace. The Sacramento half-marathon is an out-and-back (the marathon is a double out-and-back) so I saw her as I was on the way back and we waved. I finished just under 2 hours, which seems to be my average time for a half-marathon. I waited, and after 20 or 30 minutes passed, I got concerned. I picked up a banana and a water bottle, and walked backwards along the course looking for her. I found her around mile 12, walking and chatting on her cell phone! It seems she felt like calling up all her friends to talk to them during the event.

Still, I was impressed - from a C-section birth to participating in a half-marathon on basically no training 11 weeks later!

After the race

Afterward, all of us (her husband Ben, their two kids Dylan and Sammy, and us) went to gorge ourselves at her favorite Chinese restaurant in Sacramento.

I talked to her briefly today, and found out she is interested in doing another half-marathon with me. She has probably trained like crazy over the last year and wants to crush me at the next one. ;) She'd like a half-marathon that is scenic or one with tons of crowd support - crowd support might be more important. I've heard San Diego's Rock-N-Roll marathon is a huge block party, but I don't think they have a half-marathon. Same thing with Portland - great marathon, but no half.

I'll look around more, there has to be a nice one on the west coast somewhere.