Jonathan
I was born at the ripe old age of zero at Wesley Long Hospital in Greensboro, North Carolina to Pat and Ed Tweedy on August 11, 1978. Hardly a year later, dad moved us to Limerick, Ireland for his work with Burlington Industries, where we stayed until the summer of 1984. We returned to North Carolina, where I lived out the rest of my childhood, and where I also attended UNC Greensboro before heading to Indiana for graduate school. Indiana lasted a lot longer than I expected. What should have been two years of Germanic Studies turned into three, followed by a Masters of Information Science that kind stumbled into five years of working full-time at IU in an office called NSSE.
When I finally did move back, I quickly reconnected with Miles. You will come to know him as my handsome best man. Within a short time, we had become the best of friends. During a particularly distressing period of my life, he gave me exactly the kind of support I needed to recover healthily. One day, while sipping on some aptly-named Get Smart Tea at Open Eye Cafe, we had the genius idea that the best way to turn over a new leaf was to train together for a marathon. What seemed ridiculous soon became a concrete goal, and has now become casual annual achievement for both of us. We ran the Richmond Marathon together in November 2012, and we’ve both been running ever since.
When I first moved to the area, I lived and worked in an office on the outskirts of Chapel Hill, rarely coming to the Carrboro area. But when our office planned a move to Carr Mill, I decided to preemptively move to an apartment in Carrboro as my lease was ending, and I quickly discovered the active running community that was centered around Fleet Feet. I began regularly attending Monday and Wednesday pub runs led by Steph, and suddenly I was surrounded by the network of friendship and support that I cherish today. But most importantly, it was where I met a beautiful redheaded girl who changed my life forever…
Zoemma
I was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, to David Steffen and Jill Kerr on September 6, 1990. Shortly after I was born my parents moved to Mesilla, the small town right next to Las Cruces. I spent the first 10 years of my life there, on the US-Mexico border and grew up bilingual. In the middle of my fifth grade year, when I was 11 years old, my dad got a job at UNC-Chapel Hill and so my family moved to Carrboro, NC. I attended middle school, high school, and college in Chapel Hill, so I suppose you can say that “I’m a Tar Heel Born, I’m a Tar Heel bred.” I am a UNC Tar Heel, graduating in 2012 with a degree in French and Francophone Studies.
When I was 16 I began working at the Chapel Hill Tennis Club, first working as a camp counselor and in the pro shop, and over the course of 8 years, moving up to manage the pro shop and eventually becoming the Member Services Director. While working at the club, I began moonlighting at Fleet Feet, a specialty running store. While working there I started training for a half marathon, and after some *gentle* encouragement from a coworker who coordinated the store’s Pub Run, I got involved with the group and started to make some friends.
One of my newfound friends was Jon and he and I quickly became close friends. We would spend virtually every evening after work together, and after several months our friendship turned into romance.