Saturday, July 28, 2012

Warrior Dash - Seattle


 
Last weekend I ran the Warrior Dash in North Bend, WA. It was such a fun event, if you ever have a chance to run it I highly recommend it.

There were 12 obstacles, first one was the Barricade Breakdown, where we had hurdle over barricades and crawl under barbed wire, then we had the Rubber Ricochet, run thru a rubber jungle of hanging car tires, where if you didn't plan right, you could get hit hard.
Next was Teetering Traverse, this was pretty easy, just walk across some 2X4's nothing too crazy there.
Then there was the feared Deadmans Drop, this one was scary. First of all it was super high and the scary part is kind of hard to explain, but its a wooden structure, but when you get to the top it overhangs a bit, where I felt like a rock climber, because you had to reach over and pull yourself up and over the obstacle, crazy.
Crab Crawl was next, this was easy, just crawling under a net, I'm small enough where I could just do it on my hands and needs, some did have to do it army crawl style.
Then came the Great Warrior Wall, just a tall wooden wall with a rope that you had to climb up and over, it seemed bad at first, however there are ledges that you can put you feet on so you can then pull yourself up with the rope and climb down regularly on the other side.
Storming Normandy was next, this was crawling under barbed wire, also benefit if you are little so you don't have to do the army crawl.
Road Rage was fun, this we had to run thru car tires and climb across beat up cars, super fun. When do you ever get to run over cars?
Chaotic Crossover was easy, just crawling over a rope net, just don't use your knees, go over it with your hands and feet.
Cargo Climb was next, you could see the finish line from here, super high, but fun, just climbing over a rope net wall.
The Warrior Roast was awesome, they had two rows of blazing fires and we had to jump over those and then finally we were at the very last obstacle, which was a pool of mud and I mean thick, thick mud. The hardest part was that it was too slippery to walk thru and it was too deep to reach your hands to the bottom, so we had to swim thru it. The key to it was to keep your mouth closed :)

It was great finally to cross the finish line and get my awesome medal. Everybody was covered in mud head to toe, that was the best part of the race, watching everybody dripping in dirt.

Unlike the PVC pipe showers they had at the Survivor Mud run they had trucks with hoses on this one, so we literally had to be hosed down and it took much longer since there were so many people doing this race and only three people hosing down.

They had a band playing, good food and an awesome atmosphere. Must do race for sure.

Disney Princess Half Marathon Registered!!!


I finally registered for the Disney Princess Half Marathon so I can complete the Disney Coast to Coast Challenge. I'm so excited. In addition, I figured since we were going all the way to Disney World (its as far as you can get in the continental US for us from Seattle), I might as well sign up for as many events as I can.
So I'm also doing the Disney Royal Family 5K stroller division. I have a 4 year old son, and yes I know he is too old for a stroller, but its cheaper for us to do it this way and we both still get medals :) which he will be super excited about it. Then later that day he will be doing the Kids Races for another medal, he is going to have so much fun, I cannot wait to see everything thru his eyes. And then finally Sunday morning I will be running the Disney Princess Half Marathon!!!!

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Disney Princess Half Marahon!!

Don't forget, the Disney Princess Half Marathon registration opens in one week, July 10!!!!

Make sure you register early, this is their 5 year anniversary and they sell out fast.

Seattle Rock'N'Roll Half Maraton 2012

 
So I finally did my first half marathon and finished with an awesome time, I think. Final chip time ended up being 2:12:34, so I was very proud that. My estimated finish time was 2:15, I was glad to have beaten that.
They did an amazing job putting together the whole event, I've never been to one before, but I really enjoyed it. I was by myself unfortunately, but I made the best of it and enjoyed it all.


I was originally put into corral 41, but when I went to the Fitness Expo I got myself moved up to corral 25. The race morning was cold and rainy, I was worried about parking Downtown since all the prepaid parking was sold out, so I left my house at 4:45 to make it there super early to get a parking spot, the race didn't start until 7:00AM and my corral didn't end up leaving until about a half an hour after the clock time. Didn't need to worry about parking, plenty of spots, so I took a stroll to the Space Needle (the starting line) and just walked around a bit. I didn't want to check my bag too early since it was a cold morning, great for running but when you are not running it was super cold.



They had some food and fruit and water, I really didn't want to drink anything because I did not want to worry about having to use the bathroom during the race. I just enjoyed myself and then checked my bag and made my way to my corral. Ton of photographers everywhere, taking pictures before during and after the race, I had a great time even though I was by myself.

The course itself, I was a bit disappointed about, it was supposed to be showing off Seattle's best sites, however pretty much the three quarters of the race was down Rainier Ave S, which is known to be the worst part of Seattle (bars on the windows, etc.). Only about a mile or so was on Lake Washington, we did get beautiful views of the Puget Sound almost all the way to the finish line, however it was all uphill and by that time I was getting super tired and trying to run uphill is not an easy task.

I made it though, very proud of myself and cannot wait until my next one on August 11 in Vancouver BC, the SeaWheeze Lululemon half marathon!!!!! Maybe I can make it in under 2 hours???? Probably not.


I also have the Warrior Dash coming up on July 22 and the Run for Your Lives run on August 4th. Lots to look forward to prior to the Disney runs.

Friday, June 15, 2012

Tinker bell Half marathon here I come!!!!

I finally registered for the Tinkerbell Half Marathon!!!! I'm so excited and cannot wait to go, next up the Princess half opens July 10!!!! In addition to the Tinker bell I signed up for the Never Land family fun 5k and the Kids races. My son will be 4 by the time we go, so he will be running the 200 meter dash, he is so excited about getting his own medal.

I'll be doing the Family 5k by myself, Chase is still too little and my husband is not a runner at all. In fact he probably won't even be there to watch since its so early, but oh well. I'll be dressing up as Tinker Bell and believe it or not, I'm already making/buying the pieces I need for it. That's how excited I'm about this race.

The reason I signed up for all of the races is that I don't know if I'll be running these races again. It is expensive and far for the three of us to go, so I'm taking advantage of it while there. I'll keep you posted as more info comes out. Registration is already 51% full so make sure you register if you want to race with us!!!!

Saturday, June 9, 2012

Survivor Mud Run - Seattle






I had entered into a drawing for a free entry to a bunch of runs and had totally forgot about it, until I received an e-mail saying I had won an entry to the Survivor Mud Run. I was super excited, first of all I never win anything and second of all, what a cool run to do. I've never done anything like it, so I was in for sure. My husband and my 3 year old son came to support me. I couldn't get anybody to run with me since it was such short notice, but I was determined to do it anyway.
The course was 3.48 miles with I think about 20 obstacles thru mud. It was amazing, harder than I thought, but really fun, even running by myself.
If you have a chance to do it, you should. Don't miss out and I got a cool medal as well.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Lululemon SeaWheeze!

I will be running the Lululemon SeaWheeze half marathon this year, it is their first one ever, so I'm super excited to be part of it. I love Lulu's clothes and am obsessed with the brand all together.

As part of the registration fee you get a pair of their running shorts for "free". I just got mine today and they are so cute, the are white with colorful polka dots on them, I'll post a picture once I've tried them on, but they look super cute. I'm so excited!

We "Beat the Bridge" run. Running with Friends!

We finally did it. My very first official timed race. We had a team that we put together, most people from my work were running it and that's all we could talk about all day every day up until the race.
We had pre planned that my co-workers and I were going to run together and meet up before the race.
I got up super early, I figured traffic was going to be a nightmare to get into the parking lot. Once I got there I met up with my friends, it was so crowded, I'm so glad we were able to find each other and stick together the whole race. 8K went by so fast, we all stuck together through out the race and finished with a time of 43:33 and pace of 9:34, best time that any of us had done on any runs before. We were so proud of ourselves and got a finishers medal at the end.


One race down 2 more to go before the Disney half marathons.

Monday, May 14, 2012

My first organized run!

So for Mother's Day I saw that the city of Seattle was doing a free 5K run and I immediately was interested in running it with my 3.5 year old son Chase. I signed up super late the night before, but it allowed me to do it so I figured it wouldn't be a problem. We drove down to Seward Park (where the race took place) and picked up our race packet and had some time to play at the playground before the race stared.
They took some professional pictures and off we went. Chase just bolted from the starting line, 3.5 year olds do not know how to keep pace its either all or nothing and he gave it his all, that's for sure. After about 10 minutes he was tired, so we let all the runners pass us and he decided that walking was ok as long as people didn't pass him. Towards the end of the 5K he asked me if I can carry him for a couple of little minutes because his legs were tired, so I did, but as soon as he saw the finish line he wanted back down and ran like the wind accross it. We actually beat most of the walkers and my son genuinely thought that he had won the race! I was so proud of him, he was so excited, they had marshmallows and water at the end and it made his day.





We had so much fun running that I signed him up for a 2K race at the UW Bothell next Saturday. I'll let you know how it goes.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

So I upped my short run this month to a 4 mile run, I've really only had two of them so far, but both have been kind of rough, definetly not easy, but I did them, so I'm proud of myself for that. Both days it was raining cats and dogs, I had bought this lululemon rain jacket just for running in the rain, but it was a big fail and I'm super dissapointed since I love lululemon so much. I was able to get my pace down to 10:17, my best so far has been 10:03 on my 6 mile run, we'll see how I do this week.

I'm now ready for my long run (7 miles) this week. I'm not sure if I'll go for Saturday or Sunday, but I'm trying to find a perfect route for it. Currently I'm running around Lake Washington on the Eastside of Seattle, I like that its flat, but I need find a way to extend it to make it 7 miles, not sure how I'm going to do it though. I use "MapMyRun" on my iPhone when I run and I love it, so I'll probably just map something out on that and hope that it won't be to hilly. That's the downside of running in Washington State, beautiful but super hilly.

Keep checking back for more updates.

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Training progress

Although my ultimate goal is to run the Disney Coast to Coast hallenge next year, I have Registered for my first half marathon for this year. I will be running in the Seattle Rock'n'Roll Half marathon on June 23rd. My training is in full spring. I did my longest run to date yesterday and was super proud of myself, I ran 6 miles with a pace of 10.03, which is my personal best yet!!!! This was the first time I ran with music and I actually really liked it, it kept me distracted from wanting to look at my time and distance he whole time and I kept singing alOng to the songs which made the time just fly by. Next week I'm increasing my short runs to 4 miles an I have a 7 miler coming on Sunday!!! Super excited 8 more weeks to go!

Saturday, April 7, 2012

So I came across the Disney Princess half marathon by accident by watching videos on YouTube and having people mention it on there and I was instantly intrigued. Now this was about a year ago or so, but every since I saw those I have been researching them and finding out ton of info about the races.
I should metion that I have never, ever run in my life, not counting PE in school of course, but something sparked my interest in it. I couldn't stop thinking about the races and how much fun would it be to run one.

I live in Seattle, so DisneyWorld is exactly the farthest  you can go in the Continental USA for me, but it has become my dream to run this race. the 2012 race was already booked and by the time I was for sure going to go I wouldn't have had enough time to train for it anyway. I decided to start go for the 2013 race. I'm super excited, but since it is really far for us to travel to I wanted to make sure that I can actually run 13.1 miles prior to booking this whole thing and then not being able to finish I figured I can run one of our local half marathons first and go from there. The most popular one of course in Seattle is the Rock'n'Roll half marathon, so I signed myself up and got a training schedule.

Look for posts and pictures of me training, I'm so excited about it.