Hood to Coast 2013- Part I

In early August, I received an email from my friend Robyn inquiring whether or not I’d be interested in participating in this year’s Hood to Coast relay. The team that she was on had a runner drop out due to injury and they needed a replacement. To be honest, she sent the email out to several other (faster) ladies so when I responded that I would be interested, I didn’t necessarily think that I would end up getting to do it. Fortunately for me, the other runners she had asked were either on another team or weren’t interested…..so I ended up as the replacement runner.

I was really excited! I had done the Hood to Coast relay a couple of years earlier and it had been a great experience (despite what Robyn thinks ;0)). I hadn’t asked many questions before committing but I had a good idea of what I was getting myself in for. Robyn had been chosen to be a part of this team the year before so I had heard from her how much fun it was. The team was sponsored by Nuun, a company that makes sugar-free electrolyte tabs that dissolve in water. They come in lots of yummy flavors and have been my go-to drink during runs and throughout the day for a long time now. I was excited to be on a team that was sponsored by a company that is so passionate about running and staying hydrated :).

Anyway, once I committed to doing the relay, I was given access to the Hood to Coast team facebook page. There were three Nuun sponsored teams (Cherry Limeade, Watermelon and Lemonade)- two of them were made up of bloggers from all over the country and the third (my team) was made up of a mix of bloggers and fast runners, also from all over the country. I tried to get a handle on who was who and tried to pay specific attention to the people that were on my team but there were a lot of people and I get distracted easily :). Before I knew it, the race week was here and the facebook page was blowing up with excitement…people were sharing travel intineraries and commenting on places they wanted to go while they were in Seattle.

For our first event, we went bowling at Garage in Seattle. We had a section to ourselves and everyone was busy eating, drinking, and trying to bowl while getting to know each other. I decided to save my energy (and my pride) by not bowling and instead spent the evening trying to get to know my teammates. Everyone was so friendly and excited to get to know each other better- it reminded me of a first day of school and definitely made me feel better about spending my weekend with a bunch of strangers ;-).

The next day was kicked off by a tour of Oiselle in Seattle. They were most gracious in letting our huge group come into their space and see where their magic happens, especially considering they were also running HTC and probably had a million things to do to get ready to leave. After the tour and posing for a big group shot, we left to go run around Greenlake. It was a perfect, sunny summer day in Seattle and our large group took over the lake and warmed up our legs for the weekend ahead. After our warm up run, we were treated to cool drinks by Mason….he racked up quite the Sbux bill and if Starbucks were to give out Platinum cards, he would definitely own one by now.

After the run, we went back to the hotel, showered and ate a quick lunch before embarking on the Duck Tour of Seattle. I had never done the tour in Seattle (who does touristy things in their hometown? ;-)) so I was excited to see Seattle from a tourist’s perspective. We had the most awesome Captain who kept us entertained and had us shout, “Uff Da” every time we passed a Starbucks….which was pretty much every block.

Picture of the Duck Boat

Picture of Robyn and I clearly having a blast on said Duck Tour (not sure why Robyn is only giving it one thumbs up and not two ;-)).

After the Duck Tour we headed back to Nuun Headquarters to have dinner and decorate the Vans and to celebrate Christmas in August :-). We were given the swaggiest bags I have ever seen! They were full of stuff that we could use during the relay- a HTC Nuun Cherry Limeade shirt, Oiselle Shirt and Jacket, a special addition HTC Nuun waterbottle, a Nuun hat, Naawk sunscreen that smells seriously amazing, compression socks, and last but not least the sparkle skirt! 🙂 It was so exciting and made us all feel like rockstars!

After everyone had finished eating and talking, we got down to the business of decorating the Van. Cherry Limeade Van 2 got off to a slow start (all of us claimed to have no artistic talent- you can be the judge ;-)), but we finally had it decorated. We wrapped up the party after that and left to get our last real sleep for the next 24 hours or so.