After CIM I had nothing immediately following on my race calendar. I told myself to take one week off from even considering registering for anything because I was in extreme Runner’s High and was likely to sign myself up for an Ironman or something because I felt so invincible. 😂 I toyed with the idea of signing up for the San Francisco Hot Chocolate 15k that entire week and knew if I did it, I would wanna do the 15k and not the 5k because the 5k doesn’t get a medal. So when Stephanie from Run Strong Run, who I met through the CIM ambassador program told me she was pacing the 15 minute per mile group, I thought that would be a great way to run the event without burning myself out just 5 weeks after a marathon.

I decided to rock some unicorn attire for this because I’ve wanted to run as a unicorn for fun, so I decided this was the perfect event!

When I registered, we decided to share a hotel room, use the same shuttle and go to the expo together. It was fun to have someone to buddy up with since I almost always do everything alone!

Saturday

aturday morning I drove down to visit some friends who lived near the race Expo, including Stephanie from I RUN California. I’ve got a theme going with spending this weekend with friends named Stephanie who run!

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hen I went to the Expo and got my bib and sweatshirt. The sweatshirts are awesome. They're fleece lined with thumbholes and some of the nicest swag I've ever gotten! At the race expo we had lots of shenanigans, like eating chocolate and trying a thousand times to take a good jumping picture together. Finally we had to give up and do a video

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nd of course we ate a lot of chocolate because chocolate is delicious. <<<<
fter the expo we went to our hotel and had Mexican food for dinner and I had a burrito with French fries in it because it sounded good and some lady in line told me it's the only burrito her husband eats at that taqueria. Stephanie and I got to chat about all kinds of things, and it was fun to hear more about our non-running lives… as well as our running lives!

Since we had to be up early to catch the shuttle (well, early for me. She told me she wakes up early regularly and I told her that was gross…. I love snooze!) we laid out our clothes, put on our PJs and watched some TV before turning in for the evening.

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larm went off at 4:45 and I rolled my lazy butt out of bed to get ready so we could make it on the 6 AM shuttle. Stephanie had to be there early to get her pacing stuff and I had some friends I wanted to try and see before the race.

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got to the park and it was COLD! I did not want to take off my jacket. This is my first year doing the event but last year they told me it was pouring rain so hard that they changed the 15k to be a 5k 😬.

At the park I also got to see my friend Russ. Riss is awesome and is turning 40 this year so he is celebrating by running 40 races! This was the second race of the year for him. And then it was time to port o potty, gear check and go to the start. I heard there were 12,000 people! It was so well organized though that it didn’t feel that way.

At the back of the pack I had the opportunity to talk with quite a few people, since I wasn’t focused on pushing myself for time. That’s pretty unusual for me to get to do during a race so it was lots of fun. A lot of people were in the last corral. That’s where the party was at.

Along the course there were some hills which I enjoyed. Surprisingly over the last few months I’ve enjoyed hill training and want to do more races with more rollers. If anyone know of any good ones, throw them my way! It was a lot of fun to run in Golden Gate Park. This is my 3rd event that has taken place there (other two were Kaiser Half 2016 & SF Marathon 2nd half, 2017) and it was nice to run the park but MAN it is always SO HUMID IN GOLDEN GATE PARK. This little unicorn was so sweaty. I had sunglasses but I couldn’t wear them because they got so foggy, so I just carried them the whole race.

Along the course we went past the ocean which was great. Helped me cool down after the humidity.

About an hour and twenty minutes in I realized I needed to take a fuel pack in. Even though I wasn’t pushing, I was still being active and losing energy and felt it so I had a Gu. They had chocolate chips and marshmallows at some of the aid stations which was fun!

I also saw bison.

What did the buffalo say to his son when he left for college? Bye-son.

Finally about 2:19 later, we were crossing the finish line and the photographer got this hilarious photo of us crossing. I was telling the finish line announce that unicorns, are in fact real. He said he spotted one! It was funny. Then we had post race shenanigans again. More jumping photos. The other gal is Katherine, who hung out with us for most of the race until the very end when she finished on her own. This little unicorn had a blast. This little unicorn also got lots of fun comments about her unicorn attire.

We gathered our fondue and our belongings and headed back to the shuttle. Mmmm fondue. Overall I had a BLAST at the event and am so glad I did it with the 15 minute group. It was so fun to hear their stories and listen to them push hard and work hard for a well earned medal. Lots of rockstar ladies on that course.

After we took the shuttle back to our cars, I got straight on the road because I like to go straight home after a race and eat when I get home if it’s possible. I stopped at Amy’s Kitchen Drive thru because I figured I could use a vegetable.

Overall I had so much fun! I will likely be back later in life for the event. It was a blast. Glad to have been there this year.

As for the unicorn horn, I’m thinking this was the first race it appeared at but won’t be the last. Too much fun to retire it now! Next fun run race I do it may just appear again… because unicorns are rare and you can’t see them at every event!

Cheers runners! Happy 2018!