Seahawks 12K Kids Dash, 2014!

I was excited for Chase to run another race and the Seahawks one seemed so much fun. Every since they won the Super Bowl last season the Seahawks have become so much more popular than they have ever been before. So it was really important for me to sign him up for this race as soon as it became open, I knew it was going to sell out fast.

Photo from thelandinginrenton.com

Because the race packet pickup was about a 30 minute drive from where we lived and they offered race day packet pick up, I didn't feel like driving there before hand and just decided to get the packed race morning. Unfortunately by the time we got there they had ran out of the bibs, they still had the T-shirts and the race bags, but no bibs :( They were super cool too, I was bummed, they had the Seahawks logo and the number 12 for the "12th Man" of course. But oh well, what can you do, right?

The kids course was not really anything nice, it just took place in the parking lot of the Renton The Landing shopping area. They did have fun kids games set up there, like throwing a football through holes, a bouncy house and a "how do you measure up to a football player". Chase had a really good time before the race.

Photo from Seahawks12Krun.com

The race went by really fast obviously, it was only a mile race, they had the SeaGals and Blitz there in the beginning to get everybody excited. The kids got ribbons for finishing the race.

I was a little bummed that there were no Seahawks players there, I didn't see any anyways. I was hoping to meet at least one or two players. I did hear from the past races that the players were on the 12K and the 5K courses at the water stations, but I didn't run, so not sure if they were there this year or not.

I do recommend this race for the kiddos, as they had fun games and ribbons.

Keep on running... with your kids!

Keili

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