We were runnnn-ing.....

Well my title is suppose to be a play on Forrest Gump (at least it sounded like it in my head...) Last weekend Paul and I were proud finishers of the Wharf to Wharf 6 mile run in beautiful Santa Cruz. The run takes you from the wharf/boardwalk of Santa Cruz, through the coast and ends on the wharf (get it, wharf to wharf) and beach of Capitola.

Now, this is a small little run with only 15,000 participants. Yes, that is correct, I said 15,000. I have done quite a few runs in my day and even particpated in some big runs but this out did it all. This is not the run to do if you have any issues of claustrophobia. It took us at least five minutes to get up to the start line after the gun shot went off to start off the run, and we were not at the back. It took at least another 5 minutes until we could even really get running, and then the road narrowed, so we walked some more, and finally it cleared up enough that we could really stretch our legs and get out there. We finished with the respectable time of 1:05, but taking off those 5 minutes it took us to get to the start line I say we did it in under a hour.

I was especially proud of Paul who had never done a run before. He was a great 'running buddy' and it was great doing this event with him. Paul had so much fun he declared this will be an annual thing for us - yeah! Now if you notice from the photo above, Paul is wearing a gold number. His bib number was one of only 100, out of 15,000, that was gold. Those 100 gold bib numbers were entered into a contest for a week's vacation in Hawaii. Alas, it did not happen for us though. Now I just need to talk Paul into the half marathon here in November...I think he can be talked into it.

After the run we took the kids over to the Monterey Bay Aquarium with Paul's parents and his sister. There was a lot to see and do there, but I think most of us enjoyed the jellyfish exhibit the best. I wouldn't want to run into one of these creatures in the open water, but to look at behind glass was pretty incredible. We will have to return for another visit very soon. As always it was no fun to return to the valley heat from the beautiful coast weather, which was cold and foggy. I always say that if I lived at the beach I would be in excellent shape because it is always a beautiful day to run over there!