Leprechaun Chase 10k in Des Moines

Early this winter, when we were leisurely sipping our hot cocoas and so forth, long before the Polar Vortex sucked all the heat out of the atmosphere and caused us humans to hibernate in our homes for longer than what was mentally good for us, my long time friend, Nicky, asked me if I would run a 10K race called the Leprechaun Chase with her in mid-March. I agreed and sealed the deal by registering early and started wishing for lamb-like March weather.

Nicky is celebrating reaching a certain birthday milestone by running 40 miles of races this year. Since our 10k race (6.2 miles for those of you not fluent in k distances), was all about the green and was going to be fun, I looked up race outfit ideas (link coming soon) and kept coming back to the idea of running skirts. I've heard a lot of great things about Sparkle Athletics skirts and shared them with Nicky. We decided on our own what to get and as you can see, great mind think alike! 

We arrived at Principle Park in Des Moines plenty early. We had been encouraged to because we didn't do early packet pick-up and also because parking was "limited". Not for us. After sitting in my van for an hour keeping warm, we decided to hit the portables and go out for a warm-up mile. The warm forecast had changed to a chilly 30 some degrees with a 12 mph wind from the east for our race day. Oh well. 

The nature of this particular race is that the lad and lasses are put into separate chutes and then the lasses are given a five minute early start before the lads. The first to cross the finish line wins a free beer for their group. We hooted and hollered as we took off and I can tell you, it was nice to not have to jostle amongst the guys, I mean lads, at the beginning. They are usually taller and stronger and smellier. Just saying'- it was nice to be with the lasses.

Bagpipes and Drums- a great touch!

Nicky and I got off to a great start, going out nice and easy. After all, we both readily admitted the last time we had seen a sub-5 minute mile was in high school. And let me share a memory with you I have of high school track with Nicky. She had nice running shoes, Adidas or Asics or maybe Reebok? I don't remember. But I do remember I didn't have comfortable shoes and she let me borrow her's for several races.

Back to the race, we kept up the chatting and miles and pretty soon we were near the home stretch. The wind was in our face and we had a slight incline and unfortunately I was like a horse near his barn, I kind of took off. I could feel myself dialing it in. I didn't know how Nicky was doing but from what I could tell she was right with me.

We finished grabbed a water and a banana and headed back home. We decided that cold beer after we started chilling from the weather and the sweat, was not a good idea. Instead we warmed up with hot chocolate and breakfast sandwiches.

I'm really glad Nicky asked me to run with her. It was a lot of fun to do this race and to run with her again. 

Curious about our race outfits?
Nicky put a headband over her hat and has sweet fuzzy rainbow hand warmers.
We have our gold Sparkle Athletic skirts that are awesome. Seriously. They are very lightweight and easy to wear.
I was lucky to find my shirt at Wal-Mart. Our long socks are Target. And my visor? I call it race swag but really I found it along the race course as someone had ditched it. It wasn't very aerodynamic in the wind.