The Seattle Inaugural Mustache Dache

On Saturday 1,200 of Seattle's finest took to Magnuson Park for the 1st inaugural Mustache Dache.  The dash is a 5k and it became a blogger festival of epic proportions.

We all got decked out in our very best mustaches for the event, which benefited men's health and celebrated Movember. 

Fearing next weekend's half marathon, which I have done everything BUT trained for, I really wanted to get in some decent mileage to build up my confidence that I could "run" a half.  I use the term "run" very loosely.  Speed is not my friend these days. 

So I got to the park early, did about 3 miles, then met Lindsay for another 3 before the race started.  And we were off! 

The mustache lasted approximately 10 minutes before it was super sweaty and falling off.  The race itself was pretty uneventful - Lauren, Lindsay, and I stuck together for most of the race until Lindsay "needed to slow down" which really meant staking out her spot behind me to blow by me in the last 5 seconds!  See that picture above?  That's her planning her move to speed past!  I forced Lauren ahead in the last quarter mile to make sure she got her PR - which she did!  GO LAUREN! 

I did a fairly good job of keeping myself at around 80% discomfort (unlike the 100% discomfort usually needed!).  It's definitely apparent how much speed I've lost since Hood to Coast in August, which is the last time I've run fast.  And, my hamstring didn't respond well to this minor speed effort either.  Oh well.

At least I didn't look like that girl to the left after???

And a 5k in 26:59 (average pace of 8:42) was over!  I ran a mile afterwards to get my daily total up to 10, so it's a win all around. 

I won my race entry from the awesome Jen, so I can't really complain about anything, but here's the nitty gritty on the race.  The race was either $30 or $35 though most people got a deal on groupon-like sites, but it didn't come with a t-shirt.  That's ridiculous in  my mind.  Too bad too, because the shirts were CUTE.  I also had major envy for the trucker hats, which were sadly sold out.  The atmosphere was great (there was a mechanical bull!), but the course was just okay.  No streets were closed and we ran through parking lots and such.  I had a blast though.

We ended the morning with what else?  Brunch, duh.  Runners looovvveee to eat.