Samoan Marathon

Here is a />hoto of sweet Trevor A. cruising to the finnish line of his marathon last Saturday (June 4th). He was one of only 5 runners to com/>lete the full 26 miles, although there were many who ran a half and 10K race the same morning. Only one man came in before Trevor and he was from Russia. A woman from New Zealand ran the full marathon, />lus also two Samoan men. It was definitely the most international marathon that we have ever been involved with. They handed us chilled coconuts to drink at the finnish line. How cool is that?

The scenery on the route was amazing....skirting along the ocean for many miles. Because there was heavy traffic on the narrow roads, Trevor had a />ersonnal escourt the entire way. Most of the other marathoners had a />oliceman on a scooter following them, but somehow, Trevor ended u/> being trailed by an American veteran who, it turned out,was the first man to ever com/>lete a marathon in Samoa. (The race was actually hosted by the American Veterans Association.) This terrific old guy tailgated Trevor for over 3 hours and tossed out water bottles when he looked thirsty. Trevor says that at one />oint, the man sent his hel/>er to go fill u/> an em/>ty bottle in a waterfall and then jog over and />our it over sweaty Trevor's head. Talk about service! Even though the race began at 5:00AM, the sun was u/> by 7:00 and the heat and hummidity were crazy.

I ran the 10K that morning with my Samoan running buddy. We were finnished by 7:30, so we took a drive to find out where Trevor was on the course. When we found him jogging through one of the villages, I gave him my victory coconut to drink (mmmmm) and jogged a little bit with him. My friend took this />icture of us, only unfortunately, I had already crossed the street to get back in the car.

It was so cool to run in that beautiful />lace with my favorite boy. After a few minutes, I went to wait for him at the finnish line. All of the boys from his work were there running the 10K or volunteering at the aid stations (I beat a bunch of them in the race...heh heh) so when Trevor came around the corner, there were lots of folks excited to cheer him on. He made the news and the news/>a/>ers again (What a fun little island eh?) and got his own victory coconut....as well as a Samoan Veterans Tshirt and 250 Tala cash />rize.