Weekend Recap: Bloomsday 12k!

What a fantastic weekend filled with good food, family, and a little bit of fitness!

We drove to Spokane late Friday night with Homegrown in hand for an on-the-road dinner. The last time I had one of these sandwiches (earlier this week...), I had to restrain myself from going back and getting another one the moment I finished it. Yum!

My mouth is watering just looking at this turkey, bacon, avocado sandwich from Homegrown.

We woke early for the Marmot March, the one mile Bloomsday for 8 and under, to walk with our niece and nephew marmots. Otto the mascot for the local Spokane baseball team, even gave my niece a little help over the finish line.

No trip to Riverfront Park is complete without a ride on the Carousel.

The river was higher than I've ever seen it. My first springtime visit to Spokane.

With all the excitement of Bloomsday around the community, hubs and I decided to sign up and run it! Nothing like a spur of the moment 12k! In fact, I actually think I am better when I sign up the day before a race: no stressing about not training. But, the bad thing about signing up the day before the race was I was unprepared—no running clothes, socks, or shoes. So we hit the (extremely crowded!) running trade show and I found some great bargain clothes and a new pair of shoes. I got my first pair of Mizunos. Have you ever worn them?

Yes, I broke the first rule of running: don't wear new shoes the day of a race. Fortunately I had no problems!

Race day was beautiful. Sunny but cool. We lucked out for my first Bloomsday‚ hubs told me there have been times when it snowed or when it was 80+ degrees. I have never been in such a big race before: 50,611 people! Even our orange start group alone felt like the biggest race I've ever been in. Unfortunately I don't have any photos from the actual race, because I didn't want to carry a camera/phone but there were people as far as I could see. One fun tradition is to wear old clothes for the start of the race when it's cold and to shed them and throw them in the trees just before the race starts as a donation to Goodwill. By the time the race is starting the trees along the race start are absolutely covered with clothing.

This was the most fun race I've ever done. Lots of entertainment along the course, including a three-piece polka band on the first hill—an elderly trio playing the banjo, accordion, and base. All the distractions and beautiful scenery really kept me going and I felt good for most of the race and was surprised to be able to run almost all of it. And tt really helped to have family at mile 7 cheering us on.

Time completed: 1:19:53. Not bad for not training. And we even ran up most of Doomsday Hill!

Afterward, we changed into our race t-shirts for a family barbeque. Finally a sunny, warm day! Bloomsday has been a family tradition for years for my husband's family, so we were able to set out more than ten years of Bloomsday t-shirts.

Decades of Bloomsday memories in Spokane.

No guilt filling up my plate like this after such a big run.

After the barbeque, we left for our four+ hour drive home across the entire state.

Wind mills in Eastern Washington.

Today, I'm feeling very sore and tired. I'm glad I work from home so I only need to hobble five steps to the dining room table.