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On the day when thousands normally run a marathon down the length of the Napa Valley, one local teenager trod the 26.2-mile distance for the first time – to pay tribute to her mother and to raise funds to battle the disease that took her life. Setting off Sunday morning from the Vintage High School parking lot, 16-year-old Natasha Beitz put one foot ahead of another on a course up the Vine Trail, northward past the mustard-blossomed vineyards of the wine country, and finally back to her home campus shortly before 12:30 p.m. When the Vintage junior finally returned to a cheering welcome by her father, sister and about 20 other well-wishers, she had completed a journey that had been jump-started by six months of training – but truly launched by the desire to honor her mother Monica Beitz, who died of brain cancer in April 2016, at age 46.

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