Will run for beer: Four Courts Four Miler

This weekend was cold! It would have been cold even if we’d had a normal winter, but after wearing a tank top on Tuesday, 24 degrees and windy was a shock to the system. Too bad though as we had the Four Courts Four Miler to run.

Back in December, Pacers (a local race company) had a sale on races – if you bought 5 or more races, it was 50% off. I used to race their races all the time, but got so busy with half marathons and kids and other life stuff that I stopped. But hey, with that kind of deal, who could resist? Saturday was my second race of the five that I purchased: Four Courts Four Miler.

As I mentioned on Friday, there’s so much to love about this race, except that it’s often quite cold. This weekend, the race did was both as awesome and as cold as every other year. Like my race the previous week, I had a simple goal of sub-10 average. All of my training and races are working towards the goal of sub-10 at the GW Parkway Classic in April.

Beer Geek and I left the house around 8:15 to walk over. It was chilly, but I had on my Toasty Tights with my Happy Girl and one of my Marine Corps half zip under my jacket (turns out, the MCM shirts are WARM!)

We got to the race with plenty of time to spare, so I had the opportunity to get a picture with a leprechaun, AKA the course director.

Then it was go time!

Four Courts starts with two wickedly steep downhills. It’s the only time I ever see a pace that starts with a 6! The flip side to that is that this race is an out and back, so yes, you have to run back up it. Mile 1 was complete in 8:05 (thank you hill LOL). Mile 2 is slightly rolling hills and was wide open to the wind, but I managed 8:54 on that one. About a half mile after the turnaround, I saw the course director on her scooter, followed by the running leprechaun. While I’ve come close to beating the leprechaun some years, this was not that year. I finished mile 3 in 9:26 and promptly got passed by the leprechaun. Oh well.  Then it was time to run the uphill mile. I confess – I did walk a portion of the first hill. I can and have run up it on training runs, but after 3 miles of pushing the pace, I just couldn’t. I did, however, run the second hill. My final mile clocked in at 11:13. Holy positive splits, Batman!

Then it was time for beer! I love a Guinness at 10am LOL. We hung out for a bit and chatted with friends before walking home.

Somewhere at the bar I managed to drop my Runner’s World Hat Trick hat (I’m so sad!), so I made the questionable fashion choice to wear Beer Geek’s buff on my head for the walk home.

Highlights of the rest of the weekend included a delivery of some new skirts (including two new Skirt Sports styles), a beer dinner, and Beer Geek finding out he won his age group. All in all it was a great weekend, despite the cold weather. And, of course, now we are awaiting what might be the first (and only) snow storm this winter…

I’m linking up with Courtney at Eat Pray Run DC for a training recap and Holly and Tricia for the Weekly Wrap.