The sun may not have been shining on Sunday morning, but that didn't stop thousands from running in the 35th annual San Francisco Marathon. It also didn't stop one man from proposing to his girlfriend at the eighth mile.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Ross Kochman and Katherine MacDonald were running the half-marathon together for MacDonald's 30th birthday. As the couple approached the 8-mile mark, MacDonald was surely surprised to find her family waiting with cameras and smiling near the Golden Gate Bridge.
(SCROLL DOWN FOR PHOTOS, VIDEO)
"When (Kochman proposed) you couldn't really hear anything, except this beautiful band playing in the distance," said MacDonald to the Chronicle. "It was 'Twilight Zone.' It was mystical."
Mystical was the word for the morning marathon that was marked by San Francisco's classic rolling fog.
"Started at about 50 degrees, overcast and misty. Ended at about 50 degrees, overcast and misty," wrote Stride Nation about the climate. "You couldn't ask for better conditions. Driving home to another 90-degree day made me want to grab the fam and turn around."
As always, the course gave runners a unique view of San Francisco's many personalities. (Stride Nation dubbed it "death by a thousand hills.")
The course followed the Embarcadero, traversed the Golden Gate Bridge, trekked through the park and wound through the city, finishing past AT&T Park where the Giants were about to take on the Dodgers. (Though the marathon was a success, the Giants game was a different story.)
Runners came from around the world, but Devon Crosby-Helms of San Anselmo and Nathan Krah of Salt Lake City won the race.
Kochman and MacDonald traveled together from Boston, where MacDonald works at Sole Train, a running club and youth empowerment program for Boston teenagers.
"A lot of young people are missing a sense that they belong to something and that people believe in them and that they're going to show up," said MacDonald in a video about the program. "It seems pretty basic but I think it's pretty fundamental to the well-being of all people, especially young people."
Check out pictures from Sunday's San Francisco Marathon, as well as photos from marathons past in the slideshow below. Then check out a video preview from the event:
