It finally feels like spring up here, just in time for April! It’s a whopping 55 degrees outside today and the sun is shining, birds are singing, and most importantly, the final snow is melting.
Last month was pretty pathetic for mileage considering I’m supposed to be in the height of my half marathon training, but at least it was better than February. I only got 29.15 total miles in, but managed to run almost all of my scheduled long runs.. so that’s good! I even managed to complete two races (both St. Patrick’s Day themed) despite being either bitter cold or quite damp.
First, I ran the Ras Na hEireann (Race of the Irish) in Boston on the 16th. It was a pretty good race for me considering that when my hip started giving out on me, my time started moving well above the 31 minute mark for 5ks. For this race, I was able to complete it in 30:05 so I was pleased to be moving back down.
Also, I know it doesn’t mean much since it’s essentially just a participation award, but I was really excited that we received medals for this race! The only other medal I’ve ever received was for the Tinker Bell Half Marathon and I thought that one was well earned. I’ve never been in a shorter race that gave out medals to participants so it was a nice surprise. Oh especially since it was in the single digits out so my face was about frozen off by the end of the race, so yes, a medal made it a bit better.
Just this past weekend, I ran the Shamrock Shuffle which was a 2 mile race. Yeah, Manchester is a little late to the show having its race weeks after St. Patrick’s Day, but apparently it’s because they get all of Boston’s stuff from the St. Patrick’s Day parade so they need a week or two of buffering to get it all up here and set up I guess? I don’t know. I don’t care. I was just happy to be able to participate in two super green races.
Since this one was shorter, I wanted to push myself to see how fast I could go. For the first mile, I was running with a friend and didn’t want to go to crazy since she made a comment that she was surprised we were doing a sub-10 minute mile. We later got to a big hill and she urged me to go ahead so I tried my darndest to sprint the hill and the rest of the way to the finish. I ended up doing the 2 miles in 18:03 which is great but I just wonder what I could have done had I pushed a little harder.
Big perk of getting to run 2 St. Patrick’s Day Races: REPURPOSING ALL OF MY GREEN TINK STUFF! Seriously. I have way too much green running apparel right now so I was excited by the opportunity to to don my green shoes, compression sleeves, and skirt yet again.
I’ll hopefully be able to up my game in training in April since the half marathon in Vermont is closing in! Unfortunately, I have a full weekend coming up as well as two races which is kind of messing with my long run schedule, but I’ll just have to figure something out. Unfortunately, it’s looking like I’ll have to do my 10 mile run the day after a mud run so hopefully it isn’t too challenging.
Running On Lazy 