Teens are in the Running

Last Saturday, I ran 6.2 miles from AT & T Park to Candlestick/Monster Park with 930 participants, including many youth, in the 3rd annual Mayor Newsom's Stadium to Stadium 10K Challenge . It was ferociously hot.

Luckily, Fiorella, the Vice President of Speak Up! (aka the Bayview library's Teen Advisory Council) headed up an extra water table in front of the library, with an encouraging poster that read "Go Runners!" With the kind assistance of library staff member Jessie Whiley and Kid Power volunteer AJ, Fiorella kept the cups of water coming for demanding, thirsty runners. I was especially grateful and inspired to see her and AJ there at Third and Revere, around 3 miles into the race. AJ was yelling "free water" through a megaphone. People were crowded around the table.

After feeling briefly rejuvenated from the encouragement of Fiorella and AJ, I hit rock bottom on Gilman St., a couple of miles from the Monster Park stadium. It was hot, it was flat, and the water left in my bottle was warm. There was no end in sight. Then I saw a teenager I knew from the Portola branch library. "Hannah!" I called. She was dead tired too. I gave her the dregs from my water bottle, and we ran the last couple of miles together. Hannah's on the track team at her school, so I figured if she was 16 and tired and on the track team, I shouldn't be embarrassed to be 39 and ready to cry. Running together helped ups both get through to the end. She even sprinted at the end (well, so did I, but I "sprinted" more slowly). Thanks Hannah, for being there on the road with me, and with your team. Thanks Fiorella and AJ, and Speak Up!, for the H2O!

Here's the link to the race results:
Stadium to Stadium Final Race Results

Scroll down to Team -- SFPL, towards the bottom of the page, to see the results of the two SFPL staff members who registered to run.

Sorry I didn't take pictures. I didn't carry my phone!

wendy