san francisco
just got back from a wonderful time in san francisco with my mom, brother, and sister in law. we actually went out for nathan to run a 50 mile race. if you follow me on social media, you may have seen that nathan was unable to finish. he had two seizurish episodes and he wrote more about it on his blog here. getting a call from nathan while we we're eating breakfast to say that he was with medics and needed us to meet him at the start/finish was not something we were expecting. nathan has trained for this for months and his even done two 50k races in the past month. physically and mentally he couldn't have been more prepared. he has started trying to break down whats going on and why he's having the seizurish episodes on some of his runs...trying to find a common denominator. his theory (and a its a good one) is that it all has something to do with overexertion on huge hills and his spike in heart rate during that. the past 2 or 3 times he's had this happen, it was at the top of a huge elevation gain. there's gotta be something to that.
so anyway, after the race we let nathan rest back at the room and we went on a search for the sea lions at pier 39. they weren't there the last time we came and i was determined to find them. on the uber ride there, we started talking about how many miracles had happened that day despite nathan's issues. we saw multiple hawk sitings the day before and even saw a car dashboard filled with hawk feathers. the morning of the race elizabeth's phone had literally no service, mom's had 1x and she decided to turn it on airplane mode to save battery, and by the GRACE OF GOD my phone had a signal when nathan called to tell us what had happened on the trail and that his trail angel (erik wylde) had helped him. otherwise, we would've continued to wait for nathan to run past and wondered where he was with no way to get in touch. there's literally NO phone service where the race was. then after we got the call, we rushed back to try to find a catch a shuttle back to the start/finish. problem was no shuttles were going there for hours. the sweetest girl ever, named whitney from Publicist Hawkeye (see that?! yes HAWKeye), offered to personally drive us back to it (a good 30 min drive.) when we finally got there, there was no sign of nathan and now none of us had any service what so ever. i noticed all the team from hawkeye had walkie talkies so i started having them walkie talkie to people at other locations to look for nathan. we found out he wasn't there yet, but in route. we eventually found him in the crowd, another miracle, and took him over to the medics for a quick check of vitals. they gave him some oxygen and then sent him on his way. we headed back in the hawkeye tahoe to find the shuttle back to san francisco (thanks again to sweet whitney for taking us to the shuttle stop) and when we get there, there were no shuttles back. the last thing we wanted nathan to do was to have to wait for a shuttle. we couldn't use uber because NO PHONE SERVICE. we felt stranded. whitney was able to tell a shuttle bus driver to reroute and take us back to san francisco. yet another miracle.
so... as we talked about all of this our uber drive chimed in and said "you all sound like christians" my mom perked up and said "WE ARE! are you?" and he told us he was. mom started to give a brief brushstroke of nathan's story and the man began to tell us that we worship the Almighty Healer. he told us probably 10 times that Jehovah was our healer and told us multiple stories of healing from the bible. he was like an angel. by the end of the ride mom was crying and thanking him. i don't take things like that lightly. we needed him that day.
the next day nathan got up early and ran an "easy 7 miles." we spent the day exploring san francisco. a new day! he's working hard to figure out what running style will best suit him. i'm sure its a process to figure out what racing works best for him, but in typical nate fashion, he isn't giving up.
it was just a perfect trip. we crammed so much in our 4 days. we drove up highway 1 to carmel by the sea. ate great food. caught up with old friends. hiked beside the best smelling trees and plants OF ALL TIME. saw beaches, silicon valley, sausalito, redwoods, muir woods. shopped. bought christmas ornaments. watched the sea lions. met my apple watch activity goals for the first time (ha!) i would've loved to have gotten a picture of nathan crossing that finish line and heard all the stories he had from the day, BUT we got more time together that day. for that, i am grateful. shoutout to my amazing husband, cal, that stayed home with the kids so that i go. here's some photos from the trip:
