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Monday, April 1, 2013

will run for chocolate

my alarm went off far too early on the morning of the hot chocolate 5K. we're talking 5:15 here, people.  i tell you, these runs always seem like such a great idea when i'm registering for them. but those early morning wake-up calls are brutal.  anyway, with kelley due to pick me up at ten to 6, i scrambled to get myself ready as quietly as i could. with three sleeping friends in the room, i didn't want to cause a ruckus. i'm nice like that.


gotta love the live weather reports in the elevator.


we managed to find parking pretty easily, and stopped in front of the marshmallow man for a pre-race photo.

  

they really take their corral placement seriously.


the sign guy for our corral looked really excited to be there.


finally,we moved up towards the start line to wait for our release.  like cattle.


look at how many people were still behind us! i spied people wearing bibs that put them in corrals all the way back to M. dang.

 

as we finally got going, i was really surprised to find out that san diego is a lot hillier than i'd expected. we ran along some streets that were on a gnarly ass incline. happily, the first mile marker came up pretty quickly.


you can't tell so much from my crappy ass in-motion photography, but yeah...there were hills.  right as i passed the halfway mark, i found myself staring up at a really long, super jacked up series of hills to climb.


i was pretty stinking happy to finally teach the top, make a u-turn, and start heading back down.

one more mile to go!


as always, regardless of the length of the run, the final mile is the hardest for me to complete.


yay for finish lines! my motivation for every race i do.


really need to stop wearing this shirt.  it's not really one of those fast-drying tech shirts and i always end up so sweaty and gross.


i decided to head into the merchandise tent to see if there was anything good.  that's where kelley eventually found me.


after dropping a little cash on a cute sweatshirt, we headed over to the chocolate tent for our reward. there was quite an organized assembly line going on in there, run entirely by volunteers.

was it worth it - early wake-up call, brutal hills, sweaty finish? um, hell yes!



you wouldn't think hot chocolate would be particularly appealing at a time like this, but it was damn tasty.


i also had a pretty good time dipping goodies into the gooey chocolate fondue.



the post-race shot.


bye bye, petco park!


if this ain't the breakfast of champions, i don't know what is.


it would be so awesome if they brought this race to the l.a. area. i'd totally do it again. i mean, wouldn't you?

3 comments:

  1. I did this race, too! It was awesome and so well organized. I'd never done one where people really adhered to the corrals, but here, as you said, they took 'em pretty seriously. Also, the M corral was for the slowpokes doing the 15k; I know because that's where I started!

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  2. I don't know if I'd do it again in San Diego, too hilly, but I would totally do it in LA if it's more flat. My knees killed me that day.

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  3. I would think they would do this race in the winter--but it does look delicious. And not going to lie--I thought your shirt was a cute V-neck and couldn't figure out what you were talking about for a second....hehe.

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