St. Patrick's Day Dash

I don't know where to start. I like people, really I do. For the most part they are kind, polite, and pick up after their dogs. Maybe this run just wasn't for me. Don't get me wrong, every person I met was kind, polite, and the bottom of my shoes held no special surprises. But from a runners point of view, today was a madhouse! The official results aren't in yet so I can only share the numbers I heard. Approximately 7,500 people....I ran in the green wave which was reported to consist of a few thousand runners (there were 4 waves).

The weather. Isn't Spring next week? Good Golly Miss Molly it was snowing today....flakes the size of golf balls and coming down as if someone shook a snow globe. Luckily the snow ended during the run or maybe I just got used to it. I'm one of those runners that attempts to concentrate on my form while I run but my mind slips in and out of consciousness. Relax your shoulders....I'm cold.....breathe easy....a 12 year old girl just passed me....short strides....how much further....

Back to the madhouse. Let me say first that this event was very well organized and kept very close to the posted schedule - impressive. I'm there to try and run this event in 30 minutes - the posted distance was 3.75 miles. IPod set and my Garmin Forerunner 305 would help me keep pace. The countdown concluded and the race began. We started moving forward and I got a light jog going. I looked over at the girl next to me (does it seem like there is always a girl next to me?) and she was walking - my Garmin showed a 20 minute pace. Not a great start.

The first mile had pockets that I could dash through and then we'd bottleneck. Going around a corner I just missed a fire hydrant - I'll just say that had I hit it at the angle I was going, I might have qualified for the women's division in the next race. A chunk of mile two was all incline - not huge but wow, it was sucking the air right out of me. A few passed me and I passed my share. We made the turn and I knew there wasn't more than 1.5 miles to go and I found that provided a little extra confidence. Maybe those 800 sprints really do help....At mile one I had a 7:42 pace, mile two at 8:22 (sad) and mile three 7:43. Ready for the good news? The last .88 averaged a pace of 7:18...good to know I had something left in the furnace. I could have puked when I crossed the finish line but I was too tired. Nothing left and my legs were taxed. Notice anything odd? Add that up and you have me at 3.88 miles and the course was 3.75. All I can figure is that I had to run back and forth many times to find holes to run through in order to find space and that added about a tenth of a mile. Race metrics: 49 of 329 in my division, 506 of 3422 men, 625 of 7245 total (means 119 women smoked me), 8:04 per mile pace.

7,500 people and I felt like I was running alone. Albert and Sharon make running fun. We kid around before the race, have our pre-race warm-up, and share our stories after we cross the finish line. Post race is always a stop at Starbucks. At that point it doesn't matter if you sucked or had a great run, we've laughed and set our sights on the next race. I missed my friends today.