When my husband and I first started dating, I lived 90 miles north of Goleta. We are both avid runners. In fact, it’s how we met, and one of our first dates was a run together along More Mesa. My husband was born and raised in Goleta. He graduated from Dos Pueblos High School, attended UCSB, and essentially never left. I loved my hometown, yet I found myself falling in love with a man and the magical place he calls home.
A few years later, we got engaged and settled in our new home together near Ellwood Mesa. What a joy it was to run from my front door and to be on the beach in five minutes. I soon jumped into training for my next 100-mile ultramarathon race and found myself running loops around Ellwood nearly every morning, afternoon, or evening. My route was often the same, yet every run felt different and I was never bored.
One sunny afternoon, I set out for a short jog and quickly noticed that I felt really queasy. I shrugged it off and chalked it up to nerves — I was flying to Arizona that weekend to compete in a race. I took a couple of COVID tests over the next two days as a precaution before realizing that I needed a different kind of test.