My Road to the Princess Half and Beyond: Kona St. Patrick's Day Run--Dublin Double

This was another race put on by the Kona Running Company. I had planned to do it since I did the Chocolate Run last fall but I waited to sign up until about a month or so ago. Actually I ended up signing up when they said that runners signing up would get a beanie. Now I don't really wear hats but after the one from the Super Bowl 5K, I wanted another one!!!

I don't know why I waited because I really enjoyed the Chocolate Run and I like how Kona communicates with runners. While Plymouth is not right around the corner, it is also not hard to get to. One "problem" was, Corktown is the same day and some people I know were doing that race. What pushed it over was that Kona was offering the Dublin Double which was the 10K and 5K. Since this was a long run weekend, it just worked out well.

Heading into this weekend, I was really hoping for at least mild weather. Even though we had a snow storm this week, we had so really mild days which were so nice. Even Friday and Saturday were not bad (mid 30s). As luck would have it, the weather did not hold out for us today. It was 12 degrees when I left my house and with the wind it felt like 2 degrees.

I picked up Jennifer and we parked downtown and got all ready in our layers. We went over and spent a few minutes in the warming tent before heading to the start line.

Since we were doing the Dublin Double, we were suppose to start in the first wave of the 10K. Problem was, we were not really sure where that was so all of a sudden we had to push our way up to the start to go. Not a big deal.

Since the weather was so cold we decided to take it easy and we went with a 1:1 interval. It was actually a perfect pace for this race. At 2 miles we were maintaining just around a 11:10 pace and I was feeling awesome. Now, I was not feeling the toes on my right foot at all but running wise, I felt great. After about mile 4, I got feeling back and it was not bad as long as we were not heading into the wind. We did slow down a little at the end due to the cold and breathing and knowing we still had a 5K to go but overall it was good.

Once we finished, we had about 10 minutes before the start of the 5K. We went over and wished good luck to an elite runner we knew and then it was time to start again! The 5K was much more crowded and after that small break it was hard to get back into the grove but we did OK. Overall, the race was good. FREEZING but good. Even the water at the stops was slush and the bananas at the finish were frozen. I am looking forward to some spring races. I can handle 30-40 but this was just too cold!!

The medals were cute too!