Saturday, January 31, 2015

Asheville Hot Chocolate 10K

My friend Steph signed up for the Hot Chocolate 10K in Asheville. I had thought about doing it in the past since it sounds like a fun event and it benefits an elementary school, plus there's hot chocolate (!), so I decided to join her this year. 

We went up the night before, and as luck would have it, the Hop was having a free tasting night at their new creamery. Fun! So we had ice cream before dinner and then went to bed fairly early. 

It rained the whole way to Asheville and they were predicting snow and/or freezing rain during the race. So, Saturday morning we put on all the clothes we brought and headed downtown. Luckily they had a bag check, so we could wear coats to walk to the race site from where we parked.

Ready to run! (Note that it's not snowing!) It was COLD and windy, but the only precipitation was some freezing drizzle towards the end.

Since the race starts in Montford, I knew there would be hills, but I hadn't really looked at the course. Almost immediately there was a long downhill to the river, and then we had a nice out and back through the River Arts District with just a few small hills. Sometime after mile 4 we turned right on Hill St to go back up. Once we got to the top of Hill St I thought we would be done with the uphills, but no. The last mile was up, up, up, and pretty steep at times. I had been pacing around 7:40 per mile until the hills. With the last mile I think I finished closer to 8 for a 49:36. Still not too bad! 

At the finish they had water immediately and then the hot chocolate (homemade), plus fruit, bagels, and those yummy maple cookies from Earth Fare (Trader Joe's has them too). I sat down for a minute, retrieved our bag from the very helpful bag check volunteers, and went to cheer for Steph. There was a lot of cool stuff at the Expo - I wish I had thought to throw some cash in my bag!

After Steph finished, we ran into some other friends, Royce and Natalie. Royce has ALS and he's coaching Natalie (his wife) and another friend for triathlons through their nonprofit, Active Reconnect (check out their inspiring story on their website activereconnect.com and follow them on Royce's blog, journeyonwithroyce.blogspot.com). I'm excited to see them at a few more events this year!