We first met in 2005 when we each signed up for Team in Training for the first time. We hit it off and became friends and training partners. We each walked at about the same brisk clip, so we usually trained together as our own little group. So we had a lot of conversations out on the race course. When the time came, Michal did her marathon in San Diego and I did mine in Anchorage, but I would have loved to have been in California to cheer her over the finish line.
Just like Coach Sarah, Michal gave up countless Saturdays, and spent a lot of her own time planning training routes, making sure we had what we needed, and gave us coaching advice. There is no way our walk team could have succeeded without Michal's dedicated coaching. She couldn't train with us much late in the season because of her pregnancy, but she was always out there with us, week after week. She and Tim had a beautiful baby boy, Alec, in late March. He couldn't ask for better parents.
After talking with Mary, the first thing I did was use Suzanne's phone to call Michal and let her know that I had finished the marathon and set a PR, and to thank her for her part in making it happen.
Here is a photo of Michal and I last year in the 2007 Ukrops Monument Avenue 10K, which we walked together, and ran a little of:
No comments:
Post a Comment