Final Post of the TNT Season 2009

So the season has drawn to a close and fundraising has wrapped up (although it's never too late to donate, here's my link one more time: http://pages.teamintraining.org/wa/rnrseatl09/awestwood) To wrap up race day, it was HOT! And the start took forever. The RNR are very popular events and the Seattle RNR was no exception. They started us by corral, which is basically in waves and my lucky corral number was 29. Yes folks that means 28 corrals started ahead of me and there about 10 more behind me. Needless to say the race started at 7am and I crossed the starting line at 750am. The days leading up to the race were uneventful and I was doing everything by the book. I had goals for this race beyond the TNT goals. But the cards were not aligned for me this year. I was up at 230am and in Seattle by 330am to catch the first shuttle bus at 400am and yes, I was the 3rd person on. I was at the start line by 430am. Luckily there were massive numbers of porta potties and lots of food and water. So I drank...and drank...and peed...and peed...and drank some more to the point that I had time to get out of line once the race started, go to the potty and get back in line before we'd moved 3 corrals forward. Needless to say, I didn't stay off my feet long enough. I waited in line for our corral to start which put an extra hour on my legs, not too mention all the walking around I did before the race started saying hi to people. So by mile 12 I was spent. Unfortunately I didn't figure it out at mile 9 because I could have split off with the half marathoners at that point, but instead I went out on the bridge, which sapped me. All in all I finished just over 15 miles and crossed with the half'ers anyway. We picked them back up again at mile 12 so I just stayed with them at this point.

Now the good part! The fundraising was absolutely amazing this season.

$757,000 raised so far in WA/AK for Rock 'n' Roll Seattle
$965,550 raised for summer season marathon including San Diego and Mayor's
$1.5 million projected for the summer season, including the TWO triathlons that also took place the same weekend as Rock ‘N’ Roll Seattle

On the National Scale:

1400 athletes from 30 chapters taking part in the Inaugural Rock 'n' Roll Seattle
$4 million raised
$200 million raised over the course of our 12 year partnership with Elite Racing on the Rock 'n' Roll events

Everyone who donated and offered words of encouragement made this event super special for me. I'm thankful and honored to have run for people near and dear to you. I have attached a slide show of pics from race day and my jersey with all the ribbons on it!

Thanks again for making my TNT experience the best one yet!