Hood to Coast – The Day Before

I was thrilled to be chosen to run Hood to Coast on one of the two Nuun Ambassador teams.

I’d heard about the race from a friend who lives in Oregon and when the documentary came out a few years ago, my running friends and I were first in line!

I’d never done a relay race before and thought that the “Mother Of All Relays” would be a great introduction. The kink in the armor was that I needed to be in Utah for work for the week prior so it was going to be a long trip and I wouldn’t be able to get a lot of rest prior to traveling to Seattle.

But these are luxury problems.

Leaving Utah should be a pretty painless process, but thanks to Delta, it was more complicated than it needed to be.

Long story short, I arrived at 12:30AM and after a $50 cab ride got the hotel.

I didn’t know anyone else who was running the race, we had been in a Facebook group together for a while, but I had never met any of them in person.

So when I arrived at the hotel and finally checked in, the guy who I was sharing the room with (whom, I will remind you, I’d never met in person) was already asleep. I did what I needed to do to get ready for bed with minimal light, collapsed into the bed and was out like a light.

Now, the next morning was interesting. It took me a few minutes to realize where I was and what the noises I was hearing were. My roommate (again, whom I’d never met) was awake and moving around.

To say it was an awkward introduction is putting it mildly. Work with me here folks, but it was like meeting a one-night-stand the next morning (although to be fair, I wasn’t drunk and we hadn’t had any intimate moments).

Turns out Joe was a great guy and we wound up getting along really well.

First on the agenda was a shakeout run.

We met up with the rest of the team and our hosts in the hotel lobby. Now would be the appropriate time to thank all the folks at Nuun, and a HUGE shout to Megan Fay for putting this all together and being a phenomenal ambassador liaison!

The run was an easy four miles through Seattle, it was a great way for us to all meet each other.

And as you can see, some of us were more shy than others:

From there, Nuun organized a tour of the new Brooks HQ. It was pretty freaking cool; we learned about its manufacturing process, marketing practices and got a sneak peek at some of the 2015 line. As a marketer, I was fascinated and could have spent the day chatting with the team there.

From Brooks HQ we were treated to lunch and then let loose on Seattle for some free time. Of course, as the elder statesman, when I hear “free time” I think “nap time” and that’s exactly what I did!But we had more to do!

We met up again in the evening at Nuun HQ for a tasty dinner, some last minute planning and most importantly, van decorating!

More to come, but know that the wake up call for the next day was set for 4AM as we needed to leave for Mt. Hood at 4:30.

That nap was the last decent sleep I was going to get for the next 72 hours.