St. Pat's Prep

My fave race of the year is tomorrow.  A 5k called the St. Paddy's Day Dash Down Greenville.  Tons of people run, about 6k this year.  Lots of people wearing green.  Afterward a great party with beer (and I have connections to get lots of beer tickets).  And then you layer on more clothese and move across the street to watch the St. Pat's parade.

In the past, specifically in 2009, I would count this as one of the best days of my life.  I'd raced and PRed in the morning with a crazy good time.  I was invited to join the running team I'm on.  I had family and friends in town.  It was the day of my bridal shower and then my bachelorette party.  It was awesome.

But even last year was great -- I raced and bonked.  But I met random people in a parking lot and played hackey sack with them for hours because I realized I was probably too intoxicated to drive home.  I'm meeting up with some of them this year too!

So tomorrow I'm going early and running about 5 miles solo.  Then I'm going to meet a good friend and help her set up strollers.  Her hubby is out of town, so we'll each push one of her kids in a stroller.  So that should be fun.  My first race with my godson!  And of course if I'm pushing 50 pounds, no worry about trying to go for a PR. 

My original goal 1/1/11 was to PR at this race, but my coach vetoed that.  We have 22 miles with some marathon pace on Sunday, and I won't be able to do that if I race a 5k on the day before.  So this will be a fun way to do the race without screwing up my Boston training.

Tomorrow after the race, we'll hang out and watch the parade with a bunch of friends, then I think she'll go home and I'm going to make my way down to the home of another running friend for her parade watching party, though the parade will be over by then, but they're going to grill out and stuff. 

Should be yet another awesome day!