St. Patty's Dash

Today was the St. Patrick's Day Dash in Seattle.  It's not an official distance and ends up being approximately 3.5 miles.  The start is near Seattle Center and the finish is outside Safeco Field.  Since the course is only in one direction, you need to figure out the logistics.  Typically, people park near the finish and take a designated bus to the start.  However, I prefer not to rely on any additional transportation.  There have been too many times, where the buses have been delayed or everyone arrives at the same time and there are huge lines.  Yes, the furthest I've walked in a race was 6 1/2 miles away from the start line, just so I wouldn't have to depend on the bus schedule.  This year I just bummed a ride.

The weather today was supposed to be nasty.  I figured it couldn't be worse than the last Seattle Marathon, so I decided to just go.  Plus, usually when the news gives dramatic weather predictions, the worst part of the storm hits another area (not us).  It did drizzle.  There was also a little wind at the end, but it was the perfect temperature for a run.  I felt comfortable in short sleeves during the race.  Every other time I've done this run, it was sunny.  There were also 3,000 more (that's what I was told, but I haven't verified it) participants this year than last year.  There were several elite/competitive runners striding out before the start.  Then the rest of the pack was pretty dense, so it was difficult to run a fast race.  That was a good enough reason to take this one easy.  Most of us ran long yesterday, so this was just a "fun run" for us.  We also have our secret meeting place, where it was easy to find each other after crossing the finish.  Really, this race was an excuse to "earn" our post-race breakfast at Kell's.

As a side note, I was happy to recieve another gift today.  I still love presents and celebrations; I don't think I'll ever outgrow them.  Of course, my friends love to give me gag gifts.  They are getting more and more creative and I may have to give one of them an award at the end of the year for outdoing each other.  Right now, my cousin's paperwieght is in the lead for Best Gag Gift.  I just think it's interesting that three people, independently decided on giving me the same gift.  It actually is the perfect size for my tea, and I've used one of them already.  Thank you Lily, Kristen and Richard.  I'm glad you got a good kick out of this, and I'm sure y'all are still snickering at the inside joke.