Tacoma St. Patty's Day Kids Run 2014!

The reason I chose this race for Chase to do is that they were actually giving the kids race finishers a medal as well as a ribbon. Its pretty rare to find kids races that provide a medal and I thought it would be really fun for him to get a medal of his own.

How cute is he???

Since this race was in Tacoma and we live in Kirkland, I knew that I had quite a drive down there, so I made sure to get up early to make sure I got down there in time. The only problem was that the kids race didn't start until 11:00 which was super nice, however the packet pick up ended at 8:30. So I had to be down there by 8:30 and then hang out for 2.5 hours until the kids race started. I had paid $5.00 extra to pick the packet up on race day, they did have packet pick-up the day before, but it was way too far for me do drive just to pick up a T-shirt. Speaking of shirts, the race did come with a cute kid size T as well and I think I paid $20 all together including the packet pick-up fee, which by the way I could have gotten away without paying it since they didn't even check to see if I had prepaid for it or not. Oh well, it goes for a good cause at least.

So we hung out at Tully's for a few hours and had some breakfast, to kill some time before the race. The weather had been kind of iffy, rainy and then nice and rainy again, I kept hoping for a dry race and it stopped raining right before, which was super nice for the kiddos.

I had only found a parking space for 2 hour parking, but it was nice that the kids race was later in the day, by the time my parking meter had run out the half marathon runners were leaving and there were plenty of great spaces by the starting line to choose from, so I moved my car and off to the starting line we went.

I love that both of his feet are airborne in this picture!

This was a 1K race and there were probably about 50 kids or so, some really small, some that could have probably ran the 5K, but fun for all nevertheless.

Off goes the air horn and off goes Chase, he always starts out super fast, its impossible to try to pace a 5 year old kid, so I just let him go and told him that he could walk whenever he wanted to. So we ran a little and walked a little. Chase is super competitive, so when he saw kids smaller than him passing him, he just took off without looking back half way through, so fast that I had a hard time keeping up (needless to say, I should probably start training for my marathon in October). He bolted through the finish line, we even had somebody yell front he sideline "Mom, keep up!"

Chase got his medal and a finishers ribbon, the medal was the same as the half marathon finishers, but he didn't care, he was super happy about the glittery colorful St. Patty's Day medal.

At the finish line they had Little Caesars Pizza, bananas, grapes, candy and water. We grabbed a bite and headed to the Tacoma Children's Museum for some fun.

Hope you enjoyed the recap, I would definitely recommend this kids race for all ages of kids, there was no rush, even the littlest ones could make it.

Let me know of any kids races you or your children have participated in the comments below, I'm always looking for something new.

Thanks for reading and keep on running!

K and C

Welcome to 2014!!!

Sorry, I've been MIA. I haven't really been running any races so far this year and I've been trying to figure out what my race calendar is going to look like. When I started running in 2012 that was my year of mud runs/obstacle courses, 2013 was a year of half marathons, what should 2014 look like???



I'm not quite ready for a full Marathon yet, I'm leaving my first one to be something really special, but again not sure again what that will look like, but what I do know is that I will run one either towards the end of this year or the beginning of next. I cannot go back on that now, can I, since it in writing and all?




I'm really seriously considering going back home (that's Estonia) this year, lots is changing there. If you haven't heard the big news yet, I'm going to be an AUNT!!! I'm so excited, my little baby niece is going to be born somewhere around May and I would love to see and hold her. Also some sad news that I got is that my Grandpa is not doing very well and it would be an honor for me to have him see Chase. He is the sweetest, most selfless person I have ever met. Shhh... don't tell my Mom, this is not at all 100% and I really don't want to get her hopes up. If you think that she can just find out from here, I don't think so,  she can't speak or read English, thankfully!

I really want to get my son involved in running and in some races. So far we have done the 12K of Christmas kids race in Kirkland, WA. That was really fun, super cold, but it was less than a mile and we went for a hot coco at Starbucks afterwards, so he was a happy camper.

On February 2nd we did the Mill Creek YMCA kids 1 mile run. This one was really fun, also super cold, however they had a place for people to wait inside, they had hot coffee, tea and donuts. Since it fell on Groundhogs day, they had balloons shaped like groundhogs (more like cats, but whatever), if you found a groundhog during the race and got a picture from him, you could turn it into a little prize at the finish line. At the end they had a finishers certificate and a ribbon for all the kids 1 mile finishers. Bananas, water and energy bars galore for all the finishers. I would definitely recommend this race for all the little ones, they did have a 5 miler and a 5K as well. This kids race did cost $15, but this was the best $15 ever spent, it came with a tech shirt in a kids size, a goody bag filled with stuff: a brooks watch, brooks headband, brooks water battle, brooks pins, brooks drawstring backpack and lots of coupons. They did run out at the end, I would recommend to get there a little bit earlier, I would have been bummed if I missed out on that.

I also signed him up for a Valentines day race, however this was located at the Green Lake Park in Seattle and we could not find parking for the life of it and we missed the race :( Super sad, lesson learned though, next time give myself a lot more time if we are doing any more races in Seattle, parking sucks there anyway and then add an event to it, its a 1000 times worse. Oh well, maybe next year.

If you have any suggestions for great kids races in the Seattle area, please comment below!!!!

Keep on running.... with  your kids!

Keili

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.