Celtic 5K

Nik and I traveled to Worcester for the second in the three-race Tour de Patrick 5K series, the Guinness Celtic 5K. That's pronounced "Wuhsta" to out-of-staters. Although for some reason people kept pronouncing "Celtic" with a soft C, like the basketball team, instead of a hard C like the actual Celts.

The weather was freezing. Apparently the spring thaw hasn't entirely reached Worcester yet. A pond in Elm Park was still mostly frozen.

It also meant there was hard-packed filthy snow on the ground here and there. 

There's a bridge across the pond in Elm Park that's a lot steeper than it looks at first. Once you start walking up, you realize you're about to fall on your ass and tumble back down. Tricky.

I tried to get a job with these people -- I don't know what they do, but I'm unemployed right now and I'm not Irish. No word about an interview yet.

The race was bigger than last week's 5K race in Pawtucket, and a bit more scenic. About 2,000 runners, if you believe the lady on the microphone. Not that I don't trust her necessarily, but you never know. Next week is the Providence St. Pat's 5K, which should have about 3,000 runners.

Both of us did great, by the way. Nik got a totally unexpected PR of 24:48, and I got close at 31:43 -- not bad considering we both treated it as a fun run, and we haven't been running very much at all. Check out Nik's race report here and mine here.