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A Big Family
Ramona Zamudio grew up in a family of five. Her mother came
from a family of eighteen. Not to be outdone by her mother, Ramona now has a
family of one hundred called the Tornados Running Club. She only birthed two of
us, but she has adopted the rest of us with her whole heart. Ramona is the
person in our club that does it all, and then some more! She handles our
membership, communications, birthday notices, leads trail runs and plans our
parties. And this is just the part that we can see. What we sense is far more
important; her caring, sweetness and love. You want to be more than you can be
around her. She is the kind heart of the Tornado that other clubs often see
swirling furiously past them.
Once our racing is over, there is nothing more like family then when we share a
meal together. We also share our stories, our laughter and ourselves. This is
not to say that we don't have a few characters. At Ramona's birthday party they
told her an old Tornado tradition of kissing the cake. So she puckered up and
was just about to kiss her big, blue, frosted cake when someone taped her face
into it! She was blowing blue for days.
In spite of some blue noses, chivalry is not dead in the Tornados. Members have
repaired her car, flown her to international races, but more importantly they
have run her in on numerous ultras. Ramona is not the fastest female, but
she is strong and steady. In relay races we often join Ramona and form some
good teams (we also know the little races with nice awards), consequently she
has amassed a nice trophy case full of hardware. One has to image that when she
looks at them, she sees more than varnished wood and burnished bronze, but
rather the memories that she shared with her big family.
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