Seattle Rock'N'Roll Half Marathon 2013! Completion of the Pacific Peaks Challenge.

Yesterday I finished the Seattle Rock'n'Roll Half Marathon. It was so much fun. The weather ended up being great, only sunny day that we are going to have for a while. Now that being said, I think I would have preferred it to be a bit cloudy, there was hardly any shade, so it made it for a very hot race. Nevertheless, I had a great time and the course ended up being much better than last year.

I woke up at 5:00AM to get ready and leave, I live only about a 20 minute drive from Seattle, but I do like to be at races early, just to give myself enough time to find parking and to make sure that I got there before they closed the streets. The race stared at 7:00AM and I was placed in corral 23, out of 41 I think, not too bad, but that still meant that I didn't start running until about 7:30AM.

I got to Seattle right about 6:00AM, there was no traffic and I got a great parking spot. Once I paid for parking and got my stuff ready (I did gear check a bag so I can have a sweatshirt after the race). I made my way to the Space Needle, there were already so many people there that I had to shove thru the crowds to make it to gear check. I had a banana, some water and a bite of a bagel and then headed to my corral. I did notice a little bit of a change from last year, they had pushed back the starting line a bit.

Finally it was our turn and off we went, I started my watch and my phone ( I use the Map My Run app. which sucks by the way, I don't even know why I use it, its never accurate) and started running. I had gotten a pace bracelet from the Expo with a finish time of 2:15. I knew this was going to be a stretch since I have been trying to give my body as much rest as possible so training runs have been very few and far apart. I had kept the pace up until mile 6, that's where I fell behind a little. I felt pretty good through out the race, it was really hot and sunny the whole time, which I think worked against me. I was really worried about my knee that had been hurting me really bad during the Portland race, this time I didn't feel anything up until mile 7.5, but it wasn't nearly as bad, no tears this time :). I finished with an official chip time of 2:28:53. I was a little bit disappointed in myself since I was doing so good up until the second half of the race, but of well, maybe I should train next time, huh?

Overall I loved this race, I'm glad I did again and I'll probably do it again next year. I definitely prefer the Seattle race to the Portland one, although I was disappointed that they didn't have foil blankets at the finish line, I'm glad I packed a sweatshirt, I get super cold after running. At the end they had the usual: water, chocolate milk, Gatorade, bananas, Jamba Juice smoothies, granola bars and chips. Once I left the finish line area, I went to a medical tent to have both my knees wrapped with ice (this really helped me after Portland). I caught the last three songs by the headliner band Hot Chelle Rae. They were actually really good, I might look into getting their CD. Since I was by myself, I didn't really stick around for too long. Next I headed to the beer garden, I wasn't going to miss out on a free beer. This was also set up much better than in Portland, the lines there were so long that I didn't even wait, in Seattle I walked right up and got mine. Once I was done I headed to the UPS gear check and picked up my bag and headed home. But before I left I did have to stop by the Dahlia Bakery and pick up some goodies for the road and some for us to share at home.

The course was pretty much the same, there were some changes for the better, which I was super excited to see. The first and the biggest one was that the huge hill at mile 5.5 was no longer there :) If you ran it last year, you know what I'm talking about. The second change was the freeway onramp loop that went up to the stadiums was gone as well. I'm sure there were some other changes as well, but these were ones that I noticed.

I'm now at race 6 of 13 for the year, every one gets me closer to finishing my personal challenge for the year. Keep up with my races right here every month.

Hope to see you there next year and next month look for the blog post for See Jane Run race!

Keili

Things to do with kids and toddlers in Seattle!

I'm always up for trying new things and searching for fun things to do in Seattle or in general for that matter. I will be putting up a separate post about general fun things to with kids and toddlers, so be on the lookout for that. I'll probably keep updating this list as time goes by as well, keep checking back for that as well.

We have lived in Seattle for the last 14 years and I used to think that there was nothing to do here and especially with kids is kind of hard to find new things to do. What I've figured out is that sometimes its fun to do the touristy things. Below you can find how we enjoy the joys of Seattle toursts during off season.

We love Seattle, it truly is the most beautiful place in the US (in my opinion anyway) and it does not rain here as much as people think that it does. Winters are mild and summers are warm, lots of beaches, water, mountains and forests, and no State Income Tax :) What else can you really ask for. I'll keep adding to this list as time goes on and we discover even more fun things to do, so keep checking back. Please let me know in the comments what you like to do in Seattle.

1) SEATTLE MONORAIL - By far the number one thing to for my son. Every time as I ask him what he wants to do in Seattle, the first thing is the Monorail and we always have to go there first. I have to agree, its pretty cool. Yes, its short, super short, but the ride is well worth it for $4, kids under 4 are free. Here is what we do most of the time, occasionally we'll change our plans if we want to spend time at the Seattle Center. I always park at a parking garage near Westlake Center, then we can walk there and catch the Monorail. Now Chase always has to sit in the front (right next to the driver), so we wait next to the gates so I can make sure he gets the chance to run and pick his seat, its a very popular spot and well worth the fight for it. TIP #1: ask the driver if your kid can honk the horn and they will always say "YES", it is such a cool experience for them that they will never forget and they will be telling others about it for weeks. TIP #2: If you don't care about spending time in Seattle Center then don't get off the monorail there, just stay on and when everybody has gotten off, walk to the other side and sit next to the drivers seat, guaranteed front seat every time :) That's what we do, we take it there and back and I buy round trip tickets at Westlake for it, then we don't need to get off and back on again, guaranteing a front row seat!

   

2) SPACE NEEDLE - You would think this is not something that a child would like, but I think you could be wrong. My boy who is four, he loves to go up there. TIP #1: don't pay to go to the top, just have lunch (cheaper than dinner) and if you spend $25.00 it includes the trip to the observation deck. When we go, I just order a cup of soup and a grilled cheese for my son and it makes for a very special lunch, he thought it was so amazing and you can see seaplanes flying right by it. TIP #2: don't miss the store across the way from the Space Needle, same souvenirs, much cheaper prices :)

3) PIKE PLACE MARKET - Get a picture taken with the famous pig. Watch the guys through the fish, TIP #1 don't worry if you live far, they will pack any kind of seafood you buy on dry ice, ready to be taken on an airplane or bus or car :) Make sure you don't miss the much talked about gum wall, and yes it is exactly what you think it is, its lots of gum stuck to the wall, make sure you make your own contribution. Don't miss the very first Starbucks if you are a coffee lover. TIP #2, take your kids downstairs there are lots of funky stores that they will love to look around at.

4) YE OLD COURIOSITY SHOP - Located on the water, just a long walk down the stairs to the waterfront from 1st avenue or make your way towards the Seattle Aquarium and you'll see it around there. My son loves this store, it fairly large, but its a combination of a museum and a store with the weirdest things you'll ever see. TIP #1: make sure you bring some quarters and get their pressed souvenir pennies and a token. Don't forget to buy a shirt or even some fudge for a snack (like I said they have anything and everything). TIP #2: make sure you make your way to the very back of the store where you see real mummies and shrunken heads.

5) THE SEATTLE AQUARIUM - This one, I can personally skip, but this is for the kids after all, so make sure you go and check it out. To be honest, the reason I don't like it as much as my son is that there are a few aquariums that I like more than this one (Vancouver BC, Point Defiance Zoo). Anyway, I would recommend this for kids though, they have so much fun. TIP #1 don't miss the petting "zoo", where they let kids touch the sea creatures, which is always fun. Most of the fish there are local, I wish they did have more exotic types of fish, but oh well. The otters are too cute, so don't miss that. TIP# 2: make sure you make your way outside to check out the seals in their natural habitat.

6) WATER TAXI - This one is a hidden treasure in Seattle. Trust me, you have to take the water taxi to West Seattle weather you have kids or not, this one is worth it. It only costs $4.00 to go to West Seattle and kids under 5 are free, what?!?!? TIP #1: sit in the back of the boat upstairs outside, you get the most beautiful views of Seattle, don't forget your camera. TIP# 2: take the latest boat you can, so you can see Seattle at night as you are leaving, so beautiful. I wouldn't recommend this if its super cold and rainy, because they view won't be as nice and it will be cold, you are on the water after all.

 7) PACIFIC SCIENCE CENTER - This is a pretty cool place for childen of all ages and adults as well. Dinosaurs - Although I'm pretty sure they don't have an real disnosaur bones or fossils or anything like that, this area is still fun for the kids, they are a large scale models that move and make noise.

The Tropical Butterfly House - This is well worth it, its a room full of beautiful butterflies, they come and sit on your shoulders TIP #1: Please watch were you step here, its so easy step on the butterflies, they land on the ground a lot :(

We love the Insect Village, right outside the Butterfly House, this is a little boys dream to be able to watch instects, he could spend hours watching them. There are tons of different exhibits to see, the above ones are some of Chases favorites though. TIP #2: You can have birthday parties there, we had Chases very first birthday there, they provided the decorations, cake, ice cream making and eating, we made rockets and launched them outside, lots of coloring as well.

8) BURKE MUSEUM - This is a hidden treasue of Seattle, I never even knew this excisted until someone posted something about it on Facebook. Now I'm passing on the word, go check it out, its fun for all boys and girls no matter what their age. They have lots of dinosaur stuff, real dino bones and skeletons, lots of games, puzzles and toys as well. TIP #1: Leave lots of time for your kid to play, the games area is awesome, we could have spent hours there. TIP #2: Family Events, check out their website for fun family events, where you get to do hands on experiments and crafts with your child.
This is a Natural History Museum, so there are lots more things to look at, not just dino related, that's just the part we enjoy the best.

9) THE FREMONT TROLL - Now, I get there is nothing really to do at the Troll itself, however for a little boy like mine just climing on it and being able to see the VW Beetle like that is all the fun he needs. This is a Troll made by four local Artist, he his holding a real VW Beetle in his hand and he lives under the Aurora Bridge, you can find ton of street parking near by and I've never seen it overly crowded.     

TIP #1: You can climb on it, touch it, draw on it (as long as its not permanent). Just be careful, there tend to be homeless people sleeping under the bridge on the top of the Troll, so please watch your children. TIP #2: Check out Fremont, you are just minutes away from Fremont, its little, but it has so much charm, good stores and even better food. Don't miss Theo's Chocholate Factory. Tours are offered all day long, however not recommended for small children due to noice factors and its boring (for children :). That's what they told us at the store anyway. Also check out "Pie", they have the best and most unique pies we've ever had.

10) LEMAY CAR MUSEUM - It is a little drive away from Seattle, its about an hour south, in Tacoma. This is well worth the drive, escpecially if you have a little boy who loves cars. Again, this is fun for children of all ages and adults. These cars are all owned by the same person and they do switch out some cars occasionally so there are some new cars to see every time you go. TIP #1: Don't miss the car races, on the third level down you can buy tickets and race little remote control cars for 10 minues, this is what my son looks forward to the most. TIP #2: Enjoy the view, make sure you step outside on the main level on the very back, you get beautiful water views.

11) THE SEATTLE GREAT WHEEL - It's a Ferris Wheel on pier 57 in Downtown Seattle. It's the largest observation wheel on the west coast. This is the only Ferris Wheel of its kind to extend over water, 40 feet of it is completely over Elliott Bay. I think it costs around $12, with discounts to children. You get some amazing views of Downtown and the island accross the water. TIP# 1: Get there early and go during off season. Lines can get really long during the summer time. TIP# 2: Ask if you can get a pod all to yourself, otherwise they will seat other people in with you, because it seats 8 people. Its always hard to deside which side to sit on if you have to share.



12) TWIN FALLS HIKE - There are lots of places in the Seattle area to go hiking. Twin Falls is one of my favorites for a few reasons. It's close, its about 35 minute drive from Seattle. It's short, only 3 mile round trip. It's gorgeaus, you cannot go wrong with a trail in Washington State. It has everything, it starts out flat with a river running next to you, then you get to a foresty area, then you go uphill with huge trees, then you get bolders are rocks for kids to climb under and over, then you get to the first waterfall that you cross over and then you get to the other waterfall. On the way we saw chipmonks, they were so cute. TIP# 1: Pack a lunch that you can have at the river in the beginning of the trail. TIP# 2: Go during off season or during the week, this trail can get crowded during nice weather, but it is open all year round.

The COLOR RUN Seattle 2013!

This past Sunday my friends and I ran the Seattle Color Run. We had been waiting for this run for a year, we missed the opportunity to sign up last year, because it sold out in hours, but this year we got in early and were ready to go.

If you haven't heard about this event yet, you should look into it for sure. Its a 5K and they have set up differnet color stations through out the course, where you get hit with powdered color. Each station has its own color, so by the end of it you will be all rainbow colored. They do have a finish line festival as well, where they had a DJ playing and bunch of color run employees just throwing swag into the crowd and free color packets. When you sign up for the race each racer gets a color packet as well to throw at the end with everybody else.

The race started at 9:00AM at the Seattle Center, I had went and picked up the race packets the day before, so I knew exactly where to go. We carpooled so we only had to find one parking space since its so hard to find one escpecially during an event like this. We made it there with about a half an hour to spare and found a space only a few blocks away for FREE!!! I was excited, parking in Seattle is expensive. I brought Chase with me as well, children under 5 are free. Since he is still a bit too small to run a whole 5K, I decided it was best for everybody that I put him in the stroller and then have him come out right before the color stations and run through them with me. One of my friends brought her Mom with her, it was on Mother's day after all, she was so kind to push the stroller for me while we ran.

First was the yellow station, the coolest thing was that as we were running down the street you could see a huge yellow cloud, it was all the powdered paint being thrown at people. You really had to be close to the volunteers if you wanted to get super colored, if you stayed in the middle of the crowd you really did not get much color on you. You do have to keep your mouth closed though, some of us got a mouthful and it did not taste good or look paticularly pretty on your teeth :) Next color was orange, then they had a water station exactly at the half way point, they even had their own color run branded water cups! Next up was pink and lastly Chases favorite blue.

I do wish that they had a few more color stations through out the course, the colors could have been endless, but because of the color station it did make this run fly by, it felt like the shortest 5K I've ever ran. On the map that they had posted online they showed 5 color stations, but it actually ended up being 4. In any case we had so much fun.

Hope to do this again next year, see you there!

Keili

Fun in Seattle!

I had taken a couple of days off work since there was no school for my son. I had asked what he wanted to do during that time and he wanted to go to Seattle. I should say that when people ask me where I'm from I always say Seattle, but technically we do live on the Eastside. I think most people do that when they live in the suburbs. But anyway it takes us about 20 minutes to drive to Downtown Seattle. We hardly ever used to go there until my son was born. We have gone out to explore more of Seattle since then. Now that he is old enough and really into all sorts of vehicle he really enjoys riding on the Seattle Monorail, so we'll go down there just to ride the Monorail back and forth. The drivers always ask us where we are from, I think only tourist ride it, they always think its funny that we go there just to ride it. It makes my son happy and that's all that matters.

So anyway after that long introduction, we went to Seattle for a day of fun. We got there about 11:00am and the first thing we did is got on the Monorail, we always have to sit in the front of course, that's the best view and the drivers always let him honk the horn two times. The best part about riding it back and forth is that you are guaranteed to get a front row seat on the way back, because most people get off at the end and we just walk to the other side of the monorail and get our seats.

After the monorail ride Chase really wanted to go to LUSH. If you are not familiar with the store, its an amazing bath stuff store. That's what I call it anyway, they have the best bath bombs and Chase really wanted to go there to pick out a few things. Since we are running low on them anyway I had him pick out a few things. He really wanted the rocket ship bath bomb, but they were all out, so he ended up choosing the robot, the three in one Easter egg and the Saturn bath bombs. This made him super happy.

After LUSH we stumbled across this really cool games store (not video games, my husband is a huge gamer so that's where my mind automatically goes :)). They had all sorts of board games and fun stuff and Chase loves to play games, they had a bunch of them out to try. I think we spent over an hour at that store and the clerk was super nice and showed us how to play all the games. We ended up buying a very cute penguin game I'd never seen before which was exciting. Chase couldn't wait to go home and show Daddy how to play, so on our way we went.

Next we went back to the car we drove to the other side of the city to go to Uwajimaya, its an Asian grocery store. We always leave with a lot more than we came for.
There was a Travel Channel episode about best places to eat or something like that and a pastry shop located inside Uwajimaya was featured in it and my husband really wanted to try it. Its called Bearded Papas and they have the most amazing cream puffs there. I would recommend the chocolate filled cream puffs, those were my favorites, they do run out of that one the fastest, so go early.

After that is was time for some lunch and Chase was ready to go home anyway. We had yummy deli sandwiches and headed home.

It was a much fun filled day, we accomplished everything we wanted to and had fun playing the new game once we got home.

Hope you had fun reading about our adventure for the day. Comment below if you know any awesome places around the Seattle area we should check out, food, play, parks or otherwise.


Keili and Chase

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.