Shamrocks!

St. Patrick’s Day is my favorite holiday.  I love it!  I’ve written in the past about some of the joys that St. Patrick’s Day brings me, so I won’t do that again (today).  Suffice to say that it’s a jolly holiday.  A splash of green just when we need it most.  A smile and a story and a bit o’ fun.

This year, we kicked of the week of St. Patrick’s Day with a 5K run (the Shamrock Shuffle) and then Madison’s St. Patrick’s Day parade.  This morning I met up with a group of friends from Bootcamp, and we joined up in our green gear to run.  Here’s a pic of us from after the race (I’m second on the right).

I’d (accidentally) signed up for the 10K, and I had been thinking about running it, but between sickness and vacation, I did almost no running this last month, so I decided against the longer distance.  In fact, I was pretty on the fence about running at all as my cough has returned.  I was sick with the respiratory flu in mid-February, coughed through Jamacia, coughed for a week, and then after four days of being on asthma inhalers, my cough was gone.  Delight!  That was Friday, March 4.  For five lovely days, I was cough-free.  Then, it either came back or I got something new.  I’ve been coughing a lot again. Gonna talk to the doctor on Monday.  Geesh.  Spring can’t come soon enough.  So the point of that ramble was that I wasn’t sure if I should go out in 25 degree weather running today.  But I did.  And it was a lot of fun.  And during the race…I didn’t cough once.

Because of my lung gimpy-ness and the fact that I hadn’t gone for a run in a month, I decided to run fast but not to try to make my best time.  Mission accomplished. Here’s my results.

My best 5K time was 24:50, so this is a few minutes slower than that, but it’ll give me room to improve through the season:)

After the race, I went home and picked up the kids, and we went down to the square for Madison’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade.  Here are my own little sweet leprechauns.

While I was watching the parade, I took off one of my clogs.  Next thing I knew, Sylvia had removed one of her shoes too.  Such a cutie.  She can’t wait to be “a big mommy.”

The kids gathered so much candy.  I couldn’t believe it.  As much as we get at Halloween!  Andrew was the primary gatherer and then he’d turn it over to Sylvie who would deliver it back to me.

It was a fun way to start our St. Patrick’s Day week.  I’m planning a green pie or cake for Thursday.  Andrew asked how we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, and I said that mostly you could be really happy.  You could make shamrocks for your friends and wear green and keep your eyes peeled for leprechauns.  Andrew decided he would make confetti out of green paper and throw it up in the air.  He started his confetti stash today:)

Hope your week is full ‘o shamrocks!