I had a great weekend up in the LA area. My cousins were in town and we spent all of Saturday hanging out. It was super fun. Here we are in Santa Monica. One of the shops had this cool ping pong table out front so we played!

My uncle is the only other person in my family who is as big of a fan of Magic the Gathering as I am and this was the very first time since I became hooked on the game that we got to play each other. It was an all out battle. I won the first 2 games and he won the third. But in all fairness, he had to play with my second deck which wasn’t as good as mine. He taught me a few things and it was a blast!

After spending the entire day together, I had to get ready for my race at Mt. SAC the next morning. I knew it would be a big invitational so I was excited. The course is pretty difficult. There are large hills, switchbacks, and challenging loops. After my walk-through, I just tried to stay hydrated and off my legs.

When it was time to head over to the starting line, I was surprised at how many runners were in my division. I think it ended up being around 120 runners. It definitely felt like it because there was hardly any room to squeeze in on the line! This was taken right after the horn sounded. I was on the far left (or far right in the photo).

And after the start…

Here we are on one of the big hills we climbed. Actually it was more like the second part of a double camel hump. We look like ants!

Here I am just about to start climbing through the switchbacks.

More climbing…

Still about another half mile to go.

And finally… the finish!

This was a tough course. I was really happy to have had a good result. Thanks for reading!