The Seattle Bubble Run

One of my goals for this year is to do a 5K.  I've never done one and I want too.  I was planning to start running in April but then I fell and sprained my ankle.  I ended up doing a month of physical therapy and thought I was better.  Then I fell again.  So I haven't started running like I wanted too.  I was thinking that I might not get to that 5K this year and was bummed.  Then The Man saw an add for the Bubble Run.  I had seen it and ignored it but he looked into it.  I was surprised when he told me he wanted to do it.  I looked into it too and saw that it wasn't just for runners, that they encourage walkers too.  So we decided to to it.

The race started at 8 but since it was on the other side of the water from us we decided to go over the day before. We got up super early and was at the starting line at 7:15.  They had music playing and there were beach balls being batted around and rubber ducks being flung through the air.  Of course I decided twenty minutes before the start time that I had to go to the bathroom so I had to make way out of the crowd and then make my way back in.  People were not happy with me but hey, I wanted to be with my family! We were pretty close to the beginning since we got there so early.  They let the first group of people go at 8 and then let more groups go every two minutes or so.  We were at the very front of the second group.

At the beginning they had the bubble foam going.  As we waited for them to let us go, the foam grew and grew.  The foam bubbles totally took over our stroller and Munchkin was NOT a fan.  Punkin was behind her and she was NOT a fan either.  Once we got moving and got the bubble off Punkin she was fine but Munchkin really didn't like them.  We got her calmed down but had to carry her through all the bubble foam stations.  Thankfully Punkin fell asleep after the first color bubble foam station and it was much easier to cover her up and protect her from the bubbles.  People didn't realize there was a baby back there at first and they often did double takes.  Punkin got a lot of comments that she was cute.  One lady thought that baby Punkin was Munchkin's doll.

There were A LOT of walkers.  It seemed like most of the 18,000 people there were walking.  Oh, there were people running but this was not a race to try to get your PR.  There were people of all ages...lots of kids and we saw a lot of people my mom's age and older.  There was one lady with a cane. I loved her commitment to walk!  It took us an hour and a half to walk the 5K course.  Munchkin walked part of it and there was a potty break in there too.  The last wave of people were supposed to leave the starting line at nine but when we went by it at 9:30, there was still a LONG line of people waiting to start!  We were very, very glad that we got up early and got there early. We want to do it again next year and the game plan will be the same.  Munchkin's already asking to do it again.  Hopefully she'll like the bubbles more next time!