Today was an 8 o’clock start, so it was a nice chill morning.
As I was falling asleep the night before, it dawned on my that the race starts so late in the day, I could actually get Starbucks ahead of time. Cool. There are only, I don’t know, a billion of them in Seattle. It shouldn’t be hard to find one.
(That sounds like an intro to some crazy story where I couldn’t find a Starbucks in the morning, but fear not. I saw a bunch.)
I grabbed a drink heavy on the caramel (yum), and headed out for a nice thirteen-mile stroll in gorgeous Seattle.
I traveled around a walking path. Eventually, I finished the Starbucks and pitched it. Not long after, I came upon a couple who’d done the turnaround, carrying Starbucks in their hands. I smiled and said, “Good idea.” The girl looked at me embarrassed as though she couldn’t believe she stopped for coffee in a race. I wanted to turn around and say, “I did it too! You don’t know ‘cause I just got rid of my cup. I wasn’t being sarcastic!”
It was too late. We’d already gone our separate ways. Well, hopefully she enjoyed her deliciousness.
One thing that was fun today was that I saw little markers where the Seattle Marathon was planning to put their mile markers the next day. For some reason, I thought that was so cool. (Can you imagine how awful it’d be if someone just walked around, taking them out? Hopefully no one would ever do that. I just didn’t realize the miles were already marked the morning before the race…)
After yesterday’s brush with death, I was a little more on edge than normal about dogs. Anytime I saw or heard any, I went into “I’m having a heart-attack” mode much quicker than I usually do. But, there weren’t any close calls today. Everything is cool.
At the finish, not only did we have the best medals thus far of the four races, but we also had tons of free food! Not just bars, but bagels – with cream cheese. I kid you not. That’s not even the best part. I’m building to it. Hot dogs! That’s right, honest to goodness hot dogs! Hot food. You could put cheese, ketchup, mustard or all of it on there!
I know I have some vegan readers out there. Check this out, they had faux hot dogs for vegans! How great was this race? Super great, that’s how great.
I wouldn’t mind doing this one or Thursday’s again. Seattle’s beautiful. The air feels clean. These races have generous time limits, and they’re a great excuse to get moving during a long holiday weekend when people can get wrapped up in gorging on more food than we even want.
The people here were lovely. That atmosphere was great. The weather was pretty perfect (not too sunny, not too cold). Low key run, but beautiful and fun.
Three races down for the long weekend. Only one to go!