Nuun Hood to Coast Part 1.

Epic. A word often used by many to describe an event.  I can't recall that I have ever been able to describe any of my events as epic; until now.

In January I learned I was accepted as a brand ambassador for the hydration company called Nuun and jumped right into my ambassador role. I promote it often, even to the point where most of my friends and family are sick of hearing about it! Sorry guys, I'm not stopping anytime soon. Upon learning about joining the Nuun team I also applied to run on Nuun's Hood to Coast relay team this year. This year Nuun did not open the applications up to the general public (as they had done in previous years). Instead they allowed just the ambassadors the chance to apply. I applied and was one of the 20 selected.

If you have never heard about Hood to Coast it is considered "the mother of all relays." Approximately 12,000 people participate in this event on a yearly basis. I have heard of this race in the past and as a blogger I can recall reading stories about ladies who ran with the Nuun team. I longed to run this race and even told my husband (a couple years ago) that someday I hope to run Hood to Coast with Nuun. He just gave me the usual "whatever" eye roll.

So here I was a few years later prepping to run Hood to Coast with Nuun. I'll admit I was very nervous. I was about to fly 1300 miles to a place where I didn't know a single person. Sure we have all been connecting on-line for many months but it's different when you actually meet people in person. Would I get along with anyone? Would they like me? Am I going to be the slowest runner? Would people see me running my slow pace on the course and wonder why I was on the Nuun team? All thoughts racing in my anxious mind.

Flying in to Seattle.

I touched down Wednesday evening and was immediately greeted by Megan Nuun's Sponsorship Manager. Megan picked me up along with another ambassador (Justin). It was a short ride to the hotel but nice to get to know them both individually, before all the events began. That night most of us made arrangements ahead of time to all meet up at the stadium behind the hotel to watch a professional soccer game. It didn't matter to me who was playing, I just wanted to go where the rest of the team was and to get to know the other ambassadors. Just prior to walking over to the stadium I bumped into my roommate Hyla. She was in our hotel room drinking wine. I knew immediately we would be friends. All of the ambassador's flights arrived at different times so after the soccer game, the majority of us stayed in the hotel bar and waited for everyone to arrive. When the Fireball shots started getting ordered, I knew if I wanted to get up and run in the morning I had better call it a night,

Hyla. My friend who likes wine. We would get along just fine!

Seattle Sounders game

The next morning we woke and all gathered in the hotel lobby for a little pre-run along the Seattle waterfront. It was fun to take in the sites and run alongside my new friends. We chatted the entire way and 4 miles went by so quickly.

Nuun had a pretty packed itinerary for us while we were in Seattle so after the run it was shower-time and then off to Brooks Running shoes headquarters. We spent a few hours touring the new facility and even heard all about the new line of shoes they are coming out with in 2015.

The gang at Brooks

Drooling over the new shoes in the catalog and hearing about the new releases for 2015.

After the tour it was lunch and bonding time at Pyramid Alehouse. As the beers continued to be poured the conversations got louder and the laughs were plenty! As I looked around the room it was obvious to see the friendships that were beginning to form between all of us. If someone walked in from the outside they probably would've been shocked to learn that we had just met the day before.

After lunch we had a few hours scheduled for alone time or free time. I don't think a single ambassador felt the need for "alone time" so the majority of us just started walking towards Pike Place Market. We had just enough time to stop in a few shops and do a little sightseeing downtown. Then it was time to head back to the hotel and get ready for dinner and van decorating. I would have liked to explore Seattle a little longer but I'm excited to return (with my husband) at the end of September to take in all the cool stuff Seattle has to offer.

Laughing because I thought George was telling me to kiss the pig. Turns out he was really saying "sit" on the pig.

Dinner was a catered affair at Nuun headquarters. We arrived to find Chipolte, beers and swag bags waiting for us. After some heartfelt toasts by the Nuun staff members, it was time to decorate our vans! Van decorating is a big part of Hood to Coast so this was what I was really looking forward to.

I'll take one in every flavor!

Our new hoodies that were in our swag bags!

Nice and clean...not for long!

We met our assigned van driver Vishal (Nuun employee) and found the van that we would spend the next hour tagging with graffiti. We tagged the van with Nuun symbols, the twitter bird, instagram names, hashtags, and wild berries!

If you show us your WILD face, we'll show you ours. (Megan, Amanda, Vishal, Doug, Rachel, Liz and Kevin)

Team Wild Berry and Team Lemon Lime (20 ambassadors, 4 Nuun employee runners and 4 Nuun employee van drivers).

After van decorating commenced it was time to head back to the hotel but not without a quick stop at the hotel bar for one last toast (team bonding, of course).  Soon we would all be waking at various times to board our vans for the 3 hour ride to either Mt. Hood or the Sandy exchange.

Stay tuned for Part II...The Relay

PART 2 can be found here: The Relay