gritty city track club: Semana Nautica 15k 2013

by: Vivian Valdivia

Semana Nautica 15k took place in Santa Barbara on July 4^th, 2013. Gritty City runners arrived at Santa Barbara to find it was overcast, drizzling and slightly humid.

A quick picture at the starting line

As the race started, Jason quickly took the lead followed by Hugo. Jason finished first for Gritty City with a time of 1 hour flat. Hugo was came in right after with a time of 1:01 and placed third in his age division. John waited at the finish line to cheer and capture all the great finishing moments.

Jason coming in first for Gritty City

Danny improved his time from last year by several minutes and was the third Gritty City finisher. Antonio and I were reunited at the last kilometer and finished less than a minute apart. Annie had a great race after being given the race number "666"(this is true), but she flipped over the bib and wore "999" instead. Sunny came in next and had her husband and daughter cheering her on. The next person to come down the finish line was Adrian, who received third place in his age division. Leeland, who was wearing his tuxedo shirt for his upcoming wedding, came in fast because Erika was only a few feet behind him.

The next person to come through the finish line was Joe. As I was running near Joe during the first mile of the race, he was talking to someone about the importance of tying shoe laces. Joe was able to look out for others and still finish second in his division. Great job! Jason(not to be confused with Jason Wang) came in proudly representing his team and had a strong finish. Pureza ran through the finish line as Gritty cheered her on and Janet Gutierrez rounded off the Gritty City runners in style with her white running suit and veil with Leeland by her side. Janet is getting married to Leeland who she met while running. Yes, love happens on the run sometimes(checkout the running wedding pictures at the bottom).