Yesterday

Yesterday my girlfriend, Sergio and myself ran in the Porto Alegre half marathon.

It was cool and cloudy. Perfect weather.

It was the second half marathon my girlfriend has ever run. I mentioned in Saturday's blog post that we haven't trained as much as we did for her first one last December so we were going to play this one by ear.

My girlfriend didn't feel great on Saturday and that carried over to yesterday but she muscled through the cruds and did great. She didn't stop one time and she finished within 20 seconds of her final time in December. That's crazy. A 13 mile race and she basically ran the exact same time as her last race.

Side note: For those of you ex-teammates of ours who were here years ago we were blessed to see Pablo and Dani Espíndola during our run. We got to stop, talk and hug them before getting back to the race.

We crossed the finish line and Sergio gave my girlfriend a huge hug and told her how proud he was of her. She really did great.

Before the race I told Sergio he could run his own pace because Benay and I were going to run together. His response? He wanted to run every step with us.

I  mentioned the other day that Sergio runs with joy and encouragement. Here's a taste of what I mean. Yesterday, while we ran, he sang to us, played classical music for us to listen to, he danced, he told jokes, he talked and he encouraged. He told my girlfriend that she, once again, did FANTASTIC! And, as always, we crossed the finish line and he prayed. I can't say it enough, I love running with Sergio.

Here we are about 30 minutes before the race trying to stay warm.

And here is my girlfriend after the race with her medal.

We were also happy that the name on her numbered race tag was right this time.

Last time we ran a race in Brasil my girlfriend's race tag was just a little off in the name department.

No after race photo with Sergio because he had to leave quickly to go to work for a little bit.

Later we met up with his family at a churrascaria (sorry girls) for lunch. We love this family.

After lunch my girlfriend got phone calls from our girls and my dad to find out how she did in the race. Lots of people were thinking of her and praying for her yesterday. That's pretty cool.

Later in the afternoon we were blessed with a Gre-Nal. Those are always fun. We didn't go but watched it on tv. The good guys won. (Sorry you missed it girls.)

Here are the highlights for our girls.

The day ended with Giovanni sharing this quote with me as he laid in his bed getting ready to go to sleep:

"Hey dad, blue stinks and red is happy right?"

One more Colorado.

God really blessed us with a great day.