Today Rali is running in the Marine Corps Marathon, her first marathon. She originally registered for the Marine Corps 10K, but then traded bibs with someone who’d registered for the marathon but couldn’t compete.
Track Rali’s progress on this page. Her bib number is 13302, and she’s running as Tara H., the runner who traded bibs with her. Check out the Maptrack link to see exactly where she is on the course at any moment. Go, Rali!
Update: She finished in under four hours! Her final time was 3 hours, 54 minutes, 17 seconds. Rich and the kids made it to the course in time to see Rali finish. Here she is, just a few meters before the finish line:
Just a couple minutes later, the whole family met, in the water bottle area right after the finish line. Rali had made a quick recovery:
Rali’s parents in Pleven, Bulgaria, were following Rali’s progress online. When they saw online that she’d finished, they called Rich’s cell phone to congratulate her:
This morning, October 19, Rali ran another 5K race, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial 5K in Washington DC. She was fourth overall among women, in a race with some 600 runners, and won first place in her age group again. Her time was a personal best of 21:00…but since that’s so much faster than her previous personal best of 23:35, we have a feeling the course may have been a little shorter than 5K. Here’s Rali at the awards ceremony, together with race organizers and the second-place finisher in her age group.
For the kids, the real fun was after the race, when they visited a police horse in a trailer near the race start. Kristof and Kelvin were friendly with the horse…and then the horse was friendly with Carmen. The horse kissed Carmen’s shoulder:
Carmen decided she didn’t like being kissed, though!
It’s great living near Washington DC, with easy access to the excellent museums downtown. Here’s Carmen on October 17, at the National Museum of the American Indian, a Smithsonian museum.
Here are a few photos of Carmen, Kelvin, Kristof, and Rali around Washington DC and northern Virginia in October 2008. First, here’s Carmen at home, shortly after a kids’ crafts class at the apartment complex where we’re living. The necklace she’s wearing is made of Froot Loops, and no, it didn’t last the day!
On Columbus Day, the whole family went out for a bike ride together. We all rode from Falls Church to Rosslyn, then down the Potomac River to National Airport, then Rali rode on to Mount Vernon while Rich and the kids rode home. We stopped along the Potomac to enjoy the view of the monuments in Washington. Behind Kristof are the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument.
Despite all the hustle and bustle of modern life, Carmen always takes time to…never mind, this is too obvious!
These two photos are both from Wednesday, October 15. The boys get out of school early every Wednesday, so Rali and Carmen met them at the bus stop, then they all took the Metro into downtown Washington for a delightful fall afternoon on the National Mall.
On Saturday, October 11, against the Rockhounds, Kristof got his very first hit. Luckily, another player’s father caught everything on video. Here’s his full at-bat. The coach awarded him a game ball for his first hit!
Kristof’s been doing better and better in Little League. He’s still hitless for the season, but has had some walks, scored some runs, and had some good at-bats. Here’s how his batting stance has evolved, after just four games:
This morning, October 5, 2008, Rali ran another 5K, the Friends of the Orphans run in Fairfax, VA. Although the whole family had been sick with some sort of intestinal virus for the past couple of days, Rali still pushed herself…and won her age group, finishing third overall among women with a personal best time of 23:35 (unofficial). Here’s Rali pushing hard to the finish line, far ahead of most of the pack:
For her age group win, she took home a gold medal at the ceremony:
Here’s Rali at the start of the race:
And as always, Rali traveled to the race with her entourage/fan club/support staff:
