(Be sure to look at the slide show at the bottom of this article also.)
Last Sunday morning my alarm went off at “oh-dark-thirty,” rousing me out of bed to run in another St. Paddy’s Day Dash in Seattle. I had mentally, and somewhat physically, prepared myself for the 3.8 mile (6.1 km) jaunt that my son Pete and I were to begin at 8:40am. I had to get going early, however, because I was picking him up at the Fauntleroy ferry dock in West Seattle at 7:40. While I was waiting for the ferry to dock, the Olympic Mountains in the background to the west were absolutely spectacular, as was Mount Rainier to the south!
We arrived near the starting point on this beautiful, clear, sunny Seattle day in plenty of time to join 15,225 of our closest friends to begin our jaunt at 8:40am. With the beautiful strains of some local bag pipers playing somewhere in the crowd we were off!
It was more difficult that two years ago (click here to see the blog article I wrote then) because the route had changed…about half of the nearly 4 miles was up hill! Ugh! Two years ago it was all virtually level (or downhill). What a sneaky Irish trick to play on two guys named Darragh (which means “oak” in Irish)!
We both made it, though! Pete’s official time was 48:36, and his old man’s was 51:42. Not too bad considering I am twenty-nine years his senior!
I must admit that I was sore for the next two days, but I am excited to run this again next year. It’s just way too much fun to pass up!
