Hot Chocolate 15K: I'm lucky I even finished

I need a weekend to recover from my weekend.  It was exhausting.  But all for the sake of good times, good friends, and good running.

When I signed up for the Hot Chocolate 15K, I was excited.  When I got tickets for the opening match of the Sounders season, I was excited.  And then I realized that both events were happening on the same weekend.  I was still excited, but also a little scared.  And that isn't the half of it.

Even if this weekend was long and busy though, I had a blast.  Because it reminded me of just how much I love Seattle.  It reinforced the thought that Seattle is, most definitely, my home.

Friday evening, after getting home from work and taking Lucy out for a quick walk, I met up with some teammates for a non-running social potluck get-together.  I got to see some people in normal clothes for the first time.  We chatted, ate, enjoyed some beers, and I was reminded of exactly why I love all my wonderful teammates.  Yes, we all love to run, but we are tied together by a cause that is much bigger than us.  I smiled to myself as I headed home to try to rest up for Saturday morning's run.

I woke up Saturday morning and headed up to Red Hook for what should have been an 80 minute run, which I shortened to a 45 minute (5 mile) run to keep my legs fresh for the 15K on Sunday.  I hung around practice until everyone finished, and as I left practice, I smiled.  Because on a Saturday morning, I don't want to be doing anything else but running with my team.  Not even sleeping in (most of the time). 

Then I headed to Seattle Center to pick up my race packet for the Hot Chocolate 15K.  This took way longer than it should have due to crappy parking and my lack of navigation skills in Seattle Center, but I accomplished the feat and headed back home to get ready for the Sounders game.

Once I was home and showered and Lucy had her long walk, I had about an hour to sit and unwind before heading downtown.  I took an accidental nap, which made me smile.  Accidental naps are the best.  There's nothing like being able to allow your body to fall asleep just when it wants to.  More often in my life, when my body desires sleep, I don't get to give in.  It feels wonderful to give in sometimes.

When I woke up, I hopped in the car with my HLM Sierra and started the journey towards downtown.  We headed to my friend Cristin's first, had some champagne, and then bussed it towards the stadium.  We went to our typical pre-Sounders game bar and saw our Sounders game crew, plus a few additions too.

Yay friends!  Yay Sounders!  Yay extra large plastic cups of beer!

As we sat at the bar, a literal downpour started outside.  It had been an otherwise dry, great day until just about time to head into the stadium.  But I smiled anyways.  Because I live in Seattle, and that is what happens in my city.

Century Link Field is still a pretty awesome sight to see, regardless of the
rain.

At the game, we all spread out to our respective seats, and Sierra and I got to have some quality HLM time (of which there has been far too little lately).

It's rainy.  It's cold.  The Sounders are losing.  But we're still smiling.

After the game, we headed to our typical post-Sounders game bar and saw more friends.  Then we moved on to the Boxcar (a bar I once called home back in the day) to see even more friends.  I limited my alcohol intake after the game and re-hydrated, but when all was said and done, I didn't get home until about 2:30 AM.

I tried to smile and laugh.  Despite how difficult that was.

Because at 5:15 AM, my alarm went off.  It was time to run the Hot Chocolate 15K.

After rolling out of bed, hastily choosing an outfit, and pushing myself out the door, I headed towards Seattle Center to meet Erica and Ana at Ana's place.  I got detoured a few times due to road closures, but I made it there and then we walked towards the start.  To say I was tired would be a bit of an understatement, but otherwise I felt pretty good.

We got to the start around 7:20 (for a 7:40 start) and the corrals were eerily empty.  As we stood there trying to stay warm in the close to freezing temps, wondering if anyone else was showing up for this race, the 9,000 people that registered for it started trickling in.

In our empty corral.  If those aren't the definition of tired eyes, I don't know
what is.

We eventually spotted another teammate, Regan, outside the corral and she came in the hang with us and start the race.  Luckily, the race started right on time, but for some reason the officials decided to send corrals off with 3 minutes in between.  I found this to be a little ridiculous considering the size of the race (I'm sure 1-1.5 minutes would have been more than adequate), but we were only in the 3rd corral, so we were off pretty quick.

My body kicked into gear, as it typically does at the start of a race.  The adrenaline of the start and the excitement of those around me always speeds up my legs at the beginning of the race.  Surprisingly, I was feeling pretty good.

Me, Erica, and Ana all stuck together for the first 5K and ran around an 8:35 pace.  We chatted as we ran and made it down, and then up, the first hefty hill. 

The first of MANY hefty hills.

This course was the opposite of flat.  It started by leaving Seattle Center, heading down Broad (I was so glad to be going down this hill at the start instead of up it at the end like in the Torchlight 8K) and then down Western towards Pike Place.  At Pike Place, it veered off to the right, down the hill towards the waterfront behind the Market.  Anyone who is familiar with Seattle knows that this road is not clean or pretty.  Once we got to the bottom of the hill, we turned around and ran right back up it to merge onto the on-ramp of 99 just before the tunnel.  Let's just say that I wasn't super enthused about this portion of the course.

And I also knew what was coming next.  After running through the tunnel, we ran ALL (that's caps, bold, italic, and underlined) the way up 99 to just past the exit towards Green Lake at 45th.  We hit the first 5K mark after coming out of the tunnel, and Erica kind of took off at that point.  All three of us had attended the Sounders game the night before, but Erica had been the only smart one to go home right after the game.  Ana and I weren't quite feeling the speed.

While running up the massively long 3 mile hill on 99, Ana and I managed to keep somewhere between a 9 and 9:10 pace.  Considering my condition, I'm pretty happy with this.

As we rounded back down 99 for this long, boring out and back, we picked our pace back up to the 8:40 range and then 8:30 for the last mile plus.  Luckily, running uphill for so long, means you get to run back downhill on the way back. 

The finish was as disappointing as the rest of the course as we exited 99, entered Seattle Center, and climbed one more slight hill for finish right in the middle of Seattle Center.  Ana and I finished together in 1 hour and 22 minutes.  And it wasn't quite as painful as I thought it would be.  And there was hot chocolate, chocolate fondue, and lots of dippables at the finish.  That was kind of tasty.

Here are the splits for those interested:

Considering I was functioning on 2.5 hours of sleep, I'm pleased with these times.

Despite my lack of sleep and how tough and boring this course was, I still had a lot of fun.  I don't think it had anything to do with the actual race though.  As I ran this race, I realized that I've developed a community of friends and support in Seattle that I've never had anywhere else.

I started the race with friends.  As I ran, I saw more.  Christie was standing on the Aurora bridge cheering people on.  I passed my principal coming back across the bridge.  I yelled at Regan as she was running out and we were running back.  Yanni yelled at me from across the road as I came in towards the finish.  Dorothy was there cheering us on as we crossed the finish line.  As I enjoyed hot chocolate and chocolate fondue at the end, I saw another co-worker.  I knew I had more co-workers and more teammates out there on the course too.  And this wasn't even a team-affiliated event.

As I saw all these people, my smile grew wider and wider.  Somehow, in the 4 and a half years that I've been here in Seattle, I've become a part of a community.  Or many communities, I guess.  I have friends I've met throughout the years.  I have my running friends.  I have my co-workers who I've happily watched become more and more physically active over the years.  I have many people I care about, and many who care about me.

And when I think of how much my life has flourished here in Seattle, I can't help but compare it to NYC.  Who knows where my life would have led me had I stayed in that city, but I was suffocating there.  I had a couple good friends, but that was it.  That was life.  Here in Seattle, life is so much more.  

The surprising (but not surprising) thing about it all is that this wonderful life I've created for myself seems to revolve around running.  Running seems to be the common denominator in everything that makes me happy and keeps me sane.

Of course, other factors are involved.  First graders make me happy.  So does this ball of energy:

Someone felt a little neglected this weekend...

But running seems to be the string that ties all the happy pieces together.  And Seattle seems to be that background that helped it all happen.  

After the race, I went home and crashed into bed.  I slept until about 3:00, woke up to attend our Winter Team Reunion party, and then came home and was asleep again by 8:30.  

All in all, not a bad weekend.  Time to gear up for the next one.