HTC Pre-Party

Yup, I’m doing it. A super annoying multi-part recap about Hood to Coast. Sorry, kids.

I intended to post this shit on Friday morning before we took off for the start of the relay. But between running, packing for 24 hours in a van, returning rental cars, and starting the carbo-loading, that just didn’t happen.

First things first, a HUGE thanks to nuun for delivering yet another insanely fun weekend of running, hydrating, and dehydrating around the Pacific Northwest. Once again, the company managed to find an incredible group of women to run the 200 miles from Mount Hood to the Coast of Oregon and hot damn, it was a ridiculously good time.

I rolled into Seattle on Wednesday morning and immediately hunted down a group of women who were willing to postpone group festivities at the ball park to get in a few miles along the Seattle waterfront.

I think the most uttered phrase on the run with Corey, Jess and Molly was some version of “OMG, I’M SO HAPPY WE’RE DOING THIS. THIS IS THE BEST RUN EVER.” Between traveling for hours, a spectacularly perfect Seattle afternoon, and immediately connecting with a group of amazing female athletes, we were all pretty much in running heaven. I think it’s entirely possible all 3 would have joined me for a 50 miler right then and there had I not suggested turning around at mile 4, so we could log 8 for the day and make it to Safeco Field before all of the hot dogs and beer were wiped out.

Eight miles later, the four of us darted back to the hotel, reapplied some deodorant, and trucked it on over to the baseball field to join the group for some quality baseball and mingling.

Or, more accurately, quality mingling with baseball on in the background. Pretty sure the extent of my viewing of the actual game involved turning around a few times to yell “GO TRIBE” so my blonde Cleveland friend wouldn’t throw peanuts at me. Other than that, I was much more interested in befriending the hoard of running-obsessed women in attendance than watching the men playing ball way below.

After the game, we proceeded immediately to some local bars to begin our weekend long Tour De PNW Craft Beer. No photographic evidence because my game face was focused on the taps, but trust me, it was tasty.

On Thursday, I needed to be out the door at the ass crack of dawn to drive down to Oregon for work, so I kicked off my day with 5 easy miles on the hotel treadmill.

I can’t describe just how torturous it was to run GD treadmill miles on a day that I drove through Washington and Oregon, lusting after the miles and miles and miles of perfect running ground. Sigh.

By the time I returned to Seattle from my whirlwind trip to Oregon, I had missed the entire day of group fun and most of dinner. Luckily, I made it just in time to join in the van decorating.

I contributed a lot.

Fortunately for Team Night, my artistic skills and ability to wield a mean van marker were at the low end of the team talent spectrum and our van turned out looking pretty darn rad.

After the van decorating at nuun HQ was complete

a group of us hit the town to continue the Tour and partake in some last minute carbo-loading to get us in prime relay shape.

With Jess and Sarah.

Corey and Elizabeth.

And the big group.

Sadly, someone alerted Pyramid Brewery that we were in need of an early bedtime and they kicked us out after a few incredibly delicious beers.

The next morning, I woke up bright and early (again) to head over to Green Lake and meet two of my biggest running girl crushes for a 10 mile run around the neighborhood.

I met Jen and Lesko through Oiselle and they are both as bad ass as runners can get. With cheetah-like race times and insane track careers, I was a little intimated to go on a double digit run with the two of them. Luckily, they took it easy on me and the ten miles flew by with lots of juicy gossip, runnerd chatter, and girl talk.

I chased my 10 miles with a quick return of my rental car, carb sesh with some other van 2 ladies and then it was time to hit the road for relay madness!

Next time, we’ll talk actual running. Specifically, fast running. Something that hasn’t seen much blog space or running time in recent months. Get excited, friends.

And again and again and again, thank you nuun and all of the girls that delivered such a crazy fun weekend. I’m ready to do it all over again, like, tomorrow.