Kiss Me I'm Irish Run 8K Recap

Yeah, I know. This race was almost two weeks ago. But better late than never in my recapping, right?

When I first signed up for this race, there were several people that wanted to do it with me because it looked like so much fun. But then they all dropped like flies, one by one, so I turned up the feel-sorry-for-me factor big time and got two of my friends to come along and spectate so we could drink green beer have breakfast afterward.

Of course, I wasn't prepared enough to have an entire outfit put together for a St. Patrick's Day themed race, but I did order my first Team Sparkle skirt. I love it!

Narcissist blogger self pic coming right up!

My friends (a.k.a. my newbie half marathoners in training victims), Tabatha and Kimberlee, decided to meet me at the start at West Gate, which is about 45 minutes away. I managed to arrive early enough to go pick up my race packet, run back to my car to drop off my goodies and be back at the start just minutes before we were set to take off!

There were three distances to choose from: a 4K, an 8K, and a 17K with a half an hour between each start. I decided to go with the 8K. Sometimes I forget that I'm not a fan of shorter distances. I always start out way too fast. I've been working on speed (I've moved up from snail pace to speedy turtle pace) and so I had a really hard time keeping myself slower right off the bat. During the first mile, I was cruising along and several times looked down at my Garmin to see I was running at like a 9:30 pace. What?!

I'm running so fast, I'm blurry!

Well, I know way better than to do that. Total rookie mistake. I hit a short term wall right after mile one. Oopsy. But, I forged ahead and took a few pictures while I caught my breath.

Spotted a Ragnar shirt! And I love a man in a kilt...
also a man with wings on his shoes.

Gotta love a dog friendly race!

I got my second wind between miles 3 and 4 and then really picked up the pace for the last mile. The finish was a little bit of a cluster because we all had the same finish line, so the very slowest of the slow were finishing up the 4K at the same time I was finishing up the 8K. We're talking the casual walkers with strollers wearing jeans and walking 5 abreast blocking the road. So I dodged around them left and right for the last half a mile.

Holla!

Even though I was running way faster than I usually would, I ended up walking a lot because my muscles were really fatigued. I cruised through the finish with a fairly slow time over all, but that's okay considering I was just there for fun and I haven't been training overly hard.

The finish line was really festive. I would totally recommend this race. It's very well organized, cheap, dog friendly and fun. The race shirts were tech fabric, which I've come to really appreciate.

Cute, right?

And you get a big Hershey's Kiss and a green beer. What could be better?



Okay, so green beer looks pretty gross and
I didn't actually drink it.

Get in my belly!

Run Disney isn't the only place to get a character picture! Although, there was something really creepy about this leprechaun, I must admit. But since I'm not one to pass up a good photo op, I braved being mauled by his giant freaking head.

Look at that face! That is the stuff of nightmares.

Afterward, we decided that we were starving, so we walked over to Saddleback Ranch for breakfast. I can't help it is they were serving $1.99 mimosas! I had to order one...or several.

How could I resist?

Then for whatever reason, they also gave us complimentary shots. Do runners give off an alcoholic vibe? Maybe the several mimosas tipped them off...

So yeah, after all of that, I wasn't going to risk driving. So what did we do? We walked across the street to the outlet mall and shopped for many hours. Then I spent money I don't have on a purse I don't need.

I can not be trusted to shop after drinking.

In my defense, it was 65% off, which in Coach-speak is still really expensive. But whatevs, the damage is done.

Moral of the story: don't run a race, then drink at an early hour and then go to the Coach outlet. You will be sorry.