St. Patrick's Day 5K 2014

This is just how it goes sometimes.  I started drafting a race recap the day after this year's St. Pat's 5k and never quite finished it.  I'm super busy at work today but wanted to post SOMEthing and started browsing my list of Unfinished Business... and here we are:

Race conditions:  VERY cold.  VERY windy.  Jason agreed to come and volunteer at the water stop though, despite the weather.

I didn't bother with my iPod, but I really should start using it for races again.  I think it makes a real difference in my pace and how I'm feeling throughout my run.

How I ran it:  No stops.  They don't even do a mid-course water stop for this race, so no walking the water stop this time, either.

Early on - maybe 5-6 minutes in, thought to myself,
Self:  "OK this is a comfortable pace, let's keep this up for the whole race.  I think we can do that."
Better Self:  "Nope.  Stop that thought right now.  This is a race!  It's not supposed to be COMFORTABLE!  What is this "comfortable" you speak of???  If it's COMFORTABLE you want, stay on the fucking couch.  [Side note:  yes, I swear a lot, even inside my own head.  Just imagine it's in an Irish accent.  It is St. Pat's after all.] This should be HARD. This should be a little UNcomfortable!"

So the remainder of the race, that was my mantra:  "A little uncomfortable.  A little MORE uncomfortable."

Results: 
Time 37:40, 12:09 pace -not bad.  Not stellar, but coming off of the winter weather, etc.... I'm OK with that.
25th in my age group
422 overall (of 475)

Full Garmin stats can be found here if you're into that sort of thing.

Photos:  I didn't take any.  It was REALLY cold.  There were some volunteers from the Club that posted pictures afterward, but I couldn't locate me in any of them.  If you want an idea of what conditions were like, and to see a few nice costumes, you can view them here.

But I can't stand closing this out without at least ONE photo... so here's me at the 2013 St. Pat's 5k!