Saturday, August 27, 2011

My Leg of Hood To Coast

Can you believe after all that hard work Mai put into sidewalk chalking notes to Jess @ Blonde Ponytail that Mother Nature would have the nerve to send us thundershowers yesterday morning and wash it all away? Well, that is what happened. H2C started off with a bang this year with dumping rain and thunder and lightning. Fortunately the Nuun Lady Bloggers teams had a 12:30pm start so they were still sleepless sleeping in Seattle.

Some of you mentioned yesterday how lucky it was that Jess was going to run right by our house. Not quite so, but Mai and I were blogger stalkerish enough to drive about 30 minutes to Boring, Oregon to sit and wait...


...and wait...

...and watch...

....and try to figure out why Jess still wasn't passing us by.

At 88 degrees, people varied between thankful for our high fives and looking like they wanted to punch us in the face. The little boy with the hose was everyone's new best friend until he actually sprayed them. He was taking no prisoners.

Finally a Nuun van pulled up and parked by us and I saw Jess inside. Inside? Yes. I got her leg wrong. Darn it! This way we got to visit more, though!

I got a great big humongous hug from Marjorie at Taking It On and that was the last I saw of her until she crossed into the finishers chute of Leg 12. It was almost 10pm and too dark for her to see the sign we made her in reference to This POST ...

...but I got an e-mail later that she saw our sidewalk chalk notes - Hooray!
At the hand off it was finally My Time. Well, not really...it was leg two for Tricia @  Endurance Isn't Only Physical.  When I had told Tricia I would be on the waterfront to cheer her on, she invited me to run part of this leg with her. 10pm and no sun, but still pretty darn warm. We ran across the Hawthorne Bridge and the night view was just lovely over the river, then down through the waterfront, past the Steele Bridge and made it just in time to get stuck behind a train for 13 frickin minutes!

...and then Tricia serenaded me with I Play Chicken With The Train when we started moving again. At about the 2.4 mile mark, I had to turn around...it was after 10pm afterall... and I now had to run back to my car by myself through the waterfront, which can be sketchy at night. I gave her a hug and headed back the way we had come, singing out "good job" and "lookin' good" to every headlamp I saw coming my way. About 100 people told me I was running in the wrong direction and before I knew it, I was back at my car and headed home after a very fun bloggy meet-up day.

19 comments:

ajh said...

How fun to be a part of it! I haven't gotten any updates in awhile.

Kate Geisen said...

So cool, Julie! LOVE your boobs sign! :)

Unknown said...

What a great HTC story! I thought the bikini poster was for Jess...much funnier that I was wrong.

Love, love, love this post...what a great (and scary) idea to run a partial leg with these girls.

Elizabeth said...

so so fun!! glad you got to see some of the ladies!!

XLMIC said...

I LOVED the GO XLMIC over and over! Seriously made my night! My garmin didn't work and I had NO idea how fast, how far or how long …in the dark :P I was seriously questioning my sanity!

You and Mai completely rock! It was amazing to get to finally meet you! Thank you so much :)

XLMIC said...

And I totally *heart* the boob sign!

Jill said...

Hahah, love the comments you were running in the wrong direction! I think next year you're just going to have to be part of a HTC team, you already know most of the course :). What a great weekend of meeting some serious awesome ladies!!

Abby @ Have Dental Floss, Will Travel said...

Ha! I love that everyone was telling you you were going in the wrong direction. You should have tried to convince them that you were right and everyone else was wrong :)

Molly said...

How fun was that!?!?!?

Michael said...

That is really so cool! Glad you could be part of the HTC experience. What fun. You ROCK!!

Average Woman Runner said...

So awesome that you got to see the Nuun ladies on the run :)

Raina said...

Sounds like you had an amazing adventure stalking those girls for hugs!! Too funny about the train. That slows things down a bit..
And YES...running the wrong direction. I can hear them saying "The beach is that way"! :)

Nelly said...

That is awesome that you met all of them! I follow all 3 of those girls - your signs are great!

Nikki Kendall said...

Looks like soooo much fun!

Fruit Fly said...

That is so cool of you to go and cheer those awesome ladies on!

Lisa said...

It was great to meet you! As we were driving into the industrial area of that leg, I was really hoping that you turned around just past the train. I figured that people would tell you that you were going the wrong way. It was super cool of you to come out and cheer everyone on!!

Jess @ Blonde Ponytail said...

YOU ARE THE BEST!!!! FOLLOW MY BOOBS! HA!!!!

THANK YOU THANK YOU FOR TAKING THE TIME TO MAKE MY DAY JULIE!! YOU AND MAI ARE AMAZING!!!

Tricia said...

ha! I told my team that I was singing that cheesy country song to you, and they said "no wonder she turned around and ran in the opposite direction" hahaha

seriously, SO thankful you were there. You rock!

Julie D. said...

HAA!! love that they were pointing you in the 'right' direction. Those darn trains are not a runners friend!! experienced it myself this weekend. Love your boob signs and running blogger spirit!!!