The Hot Chocolate 15k was held on a perplexing sunny and temperate but also frightfully cold weekend in Seattle. I was excited to get out of town for a long weekend, so I headed up on the Amtrak with two of my girlfriends early on Friday morning. We wanted enough time to frolic before we had to get our game faces on Sunday at the crack of dawn. Frolic we did! It was beautifully sunny the first two days of our visit. We walked all over town and shopped, ate, and people-watched to our hearts’ content.
Then, Sunday arrived…

There are only so many layers a girl can put on whilst facing a drenching, windy, and unfortunately, mostly uphill run, before recognizing that she’d rather be a little cold than unable to run at all, marshmallow-man style. I forced myself to stop at 10 layers (I kid, there were only about 3.5) and, in direct defiance of the ever-helpful bag check, left my tag right on my bib where it belonged. I don’t need no stinking bag check. Once my corral was called, I took off.

The race itself was a huge challenge for me. I’ve never completed a 15k before, and it was actually more difficult to train for than my previous half marathons, if you can believe it. I was lax in researching how many training and cross-training days a week I should be dedicating to the race, and therefore switched back and forth between running too much and running too little…unfortunately I’m pretty sure I was mostly running too little. Bad news: my runner’s self-esteem was pretty low heading up the Amtrak rails on Friday. Not to mention one of my girlfriends was singing the praises of her newfound love for CrossFit as a cross-training regimen. Nope, that wasn’t intimidating at all. The good news? I ran the entire race! I didn’t have to walk once! This was a huge and lovely surprise and a true gift to myself. This tells me that my running muscle memory is sharp!!
The after-party looked amazing. I wanted to stay and play but my whole body was soaking wet from the rain that began falling even harder once I crossed the finish line. Thank heaven for small favors that it wasn’t raining too hard during the race itself (although it was definitely rainy and windy throughout). I grabbed my “finishers medal” and met up with my friends. The chocolate fondue was fan-freaking-tastic. I was actually surprised at the quality of the chocolate. I expected it to be much less tasty, due only to the quantity that had to be served up. But there was no skimping! Everything–from the post-run snacks to the awesome tech hoodies that we took home–was fantastic.
The weather was really the only drawback of this race. RAM Racing has been putting on the Hot Chocolate Race for several years, and I could tell they have perfected their system. Everything was wonderfully executed, from the expo to the after party. That isn’t to say I don’t have suggestions, but honestly, the only thing I really noticed amiss was the lack of a vendor at the expo selling some sort of energy shots/bars/gooey stuff. Everything else was great.

I can’t wait to go back next year for this run. I will say that if RAM Racing wants to bring it to Portland, I won’t complain in the least, but I really like picking destination races, and I love Seattle, so either way I will be a happy runner.
One last note – I very much enjoyed being a chocolate blogger for this race. I feel confident in saying I will do this or something like it again very soon. So check back often for offers on registration giveaways or swag!