Sunday was such an amazing day!

It started right off with a new event: I was going to cheer friends on in the Lansing Half Marathon!  I have never been on this side of things before, and I have to say that I loved it!  Not that I am going to be making a full-time deal of it.  I would still much rather be running, but Paul didn’t think that was a smart idea 2 days before surgery (damn his practical ways!).

So, Max and I headed out to the 1st mile marker bright and early to give my friends a send-off.  Max was less than impressed during the wait and could not understand what we were doing on the side of the road so early in the morning.  He is really not an early morning creature:

 

He got into it once the runners approached us, and was even sweet enough to cheer for them (any husky owners will understand what I am talking about… they are a very talkative breed).  But once our friends passed, as if on queue, he turned his back to the street and laid down.  If that isn’t motivation I don’t know what is…

We then picked up Paul and raced across town to cheer between mile nine and mile ten, and then rushed off to see them at the finish line… well, Paul and Max headed to the finish line, I headed to mile 12 to run the last leg of the race with a very good friend of mine.  It was so much fun standing there and high-fiving strangers, seeing people you didn’t even know were running, cheering for the girl whose birthday it was, and just seeing the whole experience from this angle.

 

And then being able to help one of your best friends make it to the finish line.  It. Was. Awesome.

She had run such a hard race and just to be there to help her finish was such an honor.  Even though I am terrible because I had no idea what to tell her other than, “just make it to the corner and then you are at the finish”, “you got this”, “keep going”.  Should you be conversational?  Tell her more about George?  Talk about what a crappy course set up this was?  I did my best, and she rocked it to the finish line.

 

From the half marathon, Paul and I headed down to Novi to attend the Veg Fest Expo, a vegan/vegetarian event.  My driving motivation to go to this was to hear ultra-marathoner, Scott Jurek, speak.  He is one of my idols, if that is the proper term to use.  He is a vegan, an amazing athlete, a writer, and probably one of the nicest people on the planet.  If you have never read his book, “Eat and Run”, I highly recommend it.

I decided to bring one of my race bibs for him to sign, and even though he was technically out of time for his meet-and-greet session, he went all the way through the line signing items and taking pictures for everyone that was there.  He looked at my bib and said, “Hey! Congrats on the race!”, as he proceeded to sign and write something on the bib. “I am not going to tell you to dig deep because you clearly already know how, but I am going to put it on here anyway.”  Just completely down to earth and kind.

Yup, I was pretty much in love with this Sunday.