Last Saturday my family took part in the McGuire's St. Patrick's Day 5K in Pensacola, Florida. This is one of the largest races in the southeastern U.S. (but not as large as the Peachtree Road Race in Atlanta every July, which somehow is able to handle 60,000 runners through downtown Atlanta). In a cool twist to the classic "run as fast as you can 5K race," this is a prediction run. This means that the winners of this race are those who actually ran the course closest to the time they predict at registration time.
Our oldest son, age 10, joined my husband and me for this, and we are so proud of his coming within just seven seconds of his predicted time of 28:00 (he came in 28:07). He took 2nd place in his age group, and 251st place out of over 16,000 registered runners!
I've another post brewing about what a wild event this is -- mainly about the Jell-O shots along the route and the wild costumes from complete gorilla suits to grown men running in nothing but baby girl bloomers and angel wings.
The wild and crowded party that follows the race -- unlimited alcohol and Irish food for nearly 3 hours! -- was a source of anxiety for my son, and he ended up wanting to sit outside of the crowds and the two of us people-watched while enjoying some Irish stew, bread, and root beer (okay, I had some real beer too).
From across the street my son saw a group of girls wearing green football jerseys and he could see the "3.14." I offered to ask if she would take a picture and she was happy to. In fact, she conversed with us for several minutes and if I didn't know better, I think my son might have been pretty smitten!
"Pi Girl," whose name I never learned, turned out to be a high school math teacher and we found out her birthday is March 14th too!
Happy Pi Day!
