good luck. Green feet are green they say in the St. Patrick’s Day Run. Green feet, we’re runnin’ again and havin’ so much fun. Though I cheated little bit during an extended trip to Tokyo in January, I usually don’t run much in the winter but when the days start getting longer, I’m always ready to break the winter's taper in the annual St. Patrick’s Day Dash, a “nearly 3-3/4 mile jaunt around Seattle to celebrate the Irish in all of us.” Wind, rain and giant, wet snowflakes made 2009 the most challenging weather year in the event’s 25 year history. However, this is Seattle and it didn’t seem to matter too much to the 15,000 revelers in green, red, purple, and yellow waves racing, running, jogging, and walking north up Highway 99 to the Aurora Bridge and back. snowy start to 2009 St. Pat's Dash In fact, though the-longer-the-better is usually better for us fitness runners aiming to get as much exercise as possible in our weekend events, compared to the 2007 Seattle Marathon for five hours in similar conditions and marathon maniac friends running around a small park in nearby Des Moines, WA for six hours today and the Leprechaun Marathon in Rochester, WA to the south, it kind of made me appreciate the shorter 5K range distances after all. Though a few of the thinclad elites up front made it look like a regular run in the middle of the summer, black garbage bags were the predominant uniform of choice instead of green this year. Many looked like skiing on a rainy day at one of the Snoqualmie Pass ski areas and that’s what it felt like at the end too. Even my usual painted-on green singlet stayed under a long-sleeve shirt. However, it provided a perfect pin-on place for the blinking “Kiss me I’m Irish” pin that I practiced iwth. . . I mean that reminded me of a favorite Irish boomer ultraland queen we all love so much. This year's promotional St. Pat's beads had me wondering if any also got worn somewhere by someone in Oregon last week. However, green feet wouldn’t be denied and somehow stayed a lot warmer than the rest of me while doing the actual running part. When you don’t train that much, every year (and almost every big run of the year too) is a big crap shoot looming with self-doubts. This year, the little aches and pains of getting older that emerged during winter taper-time have been enough on the right knee and left hip to make me wonder if this’ll finally be the end of 34 years of enjoyable running for fun and fitness. Accordingly, in order to avoid getting carried away with the momentum of the early miles, as is my standard practice, I waited until all of the 7,500 green wavers crossed the starting mats before joining their human lava flow first down Mercer Street (where we’d been running the opposite direction through similar weather at mile 25 of the Seattle Marathon in November 2007) and then around the loop up to the same Highway 99 ascent that will mark the climb up to the Aurora Bridge at mile 16 of this summer’s Rock’n’Roll Marathon. It had me huffing and puffing on the way up and, though slow and fatigued by the turnaround, the little aches and pains that had been coming and going on the way up were all gone so I was able to shift out of slowpoke mode and push the pace to pass hundreds and hundreds of sopping-wet, worn-out early-season runners during the later stages for a what-would-have-been a fine negative split if I’d’ve worn a watch. Unfortunately, though hilly routes are popular around the PNW, especially for fitness runners for whom the harder the better is always better, I’m not so sure it will be as much fun at mile 16 of the June RnR for any flatlander guests who have never been able to run more than 16 miles in a marathon before. I can only hope that anyone in that predicament will be able to devote many, many training sessions between now and then to as many sixteen mile runs as possible with a sustained mile long climb at the end. Otherwise, see you at Aurora. ================ best t-shirt, . . . if not photo. "rain? what me worry?" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . "rain, rain won't go away or I will" - - thanks to the Seattle Post Intelligencer for photos. ps to holly - as you noted, I pinned this year's timing card to a green ankle reflector. pps - the black foot markings are a feeble, cold-hands attempt at "shoelaces."