March is the 'official' start of the race season in these parts, since the weather is finally reaching the point where your throat and lungs won't sear from breathing in air that's too cold... so as opposed to the 15° weather in January, we're up to a balmy 30°! We had pretty decent weather for most of the O'Races, a series of 4 St. Patrick's Day-themed 5ks in mid-March. Besides being a fun set of races, if you run in all 4, the medals you earn at each run come together to form some seriously sweet bling. The medals in past years include coins that formed a pot of gold, the flag of Ireland, a map of Ireland, and a 4-leaf clover... this year we were running for a pretty sweet Celtic knot.
Kicking it off on Saturday, March 9th was the O'Shenanigans 5k, in Southington. It was a bright and breezy day, and it made for a beautiful start to the running season.
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| The O'Shenanigan's race is the only one of the O'Races that doesn't have the name of the town in its name, and I'm really not quite sure why. |
The weather didn't hold up quite as nicely the next day, when we ran the O'Putnam race. It was colder with a slight icy drizzle, but thankfully any 'real' rain was finished by the time the race began (in part because HMF delayed it by an hour).
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| It was cold and rainy enough that I actually wore a hat again. That's twice this year! |
O'Putnam has some of THE BEST post-race food of the year: warm corned beef on a pretzel roll. Beyond that, I also walked away with some Girl Scout cookies... its a smart troup that sets themselves up right at the finish line of a race to sell those things. Sneaky. But smart.
After the work week, we picked it right back up again the next weekend, with the O'Niantic 5k. Being on the coast, Niantic was the windiest of the runs, but the sun was really shining for this one, so it evened out a bit.
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| The whole crew of homies, in all our green finery (does that make it... greenery?)! |
Last came the O'Hartford 5k, falling on St. Patrick's Day itself. HMF switched the course of this race last year, and I hope that they continue to stick with this one. It begins and ends at the old Colt factory (the 'Hershey Kiss' Building, for those who know CT).
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| Shout out to Aunt Kathy (far left), who was SO NERVOUS about running these races. She did GREAT! |
Of course, with all of the races being St. Patty's day-themed, every one of them finishes with a free beer for the runners. I've been finding more and more lately that some beers can trigger my Crohn's symptoms, leaving my intestines in knots. So although I haven't avoided it entirely, most of these races ended with me sipping the beer to see how it tasted, and then passing it off to our friend, Matt. (Tara, if you're reading this, he protested vigorously every time, proclaiming that 'there was no way' he could drink both his and my beer... but I had faith in him, and he powered through like a champ. I'm pretty sure he powered through both of my sisters' beers too. Rest assured, he saved the day despite his protests.)
I've run this series of races with my sisters 4.3 years in a row now, and every year it's a blast (yeah, the .3 is from a year I could only run one race because of a business trip). These races are actually what I had in mind when I was thinking up names for this blog; as you can see from pictures above, its a big group of 'homies' who come out for these races, and it seems to get bigger every year. Maybe next year... you'll join us?
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| If the idea of running 4 5ks over the course of 2 weekends doesn't tempt you, take a look at the fully assembled medal! I'm not saying its all about the hardware... but man, that's some sweet bling. |
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