St. Patrick’s Day is quite a holiday in St. Paul where we have a pretty decent size Irish population and then a whole bunch of people who pretend each year.  We don’t dump green dye into the Mississippi River, but there is a huge parade and lots of activities all around the Twin Cities.  They close down a few blocks in St. Paul to host a giant green block party.  We did our best to participate in all the fun, but we may have overbooked ourselves a little bit.  I’m still a little tired and it might take me all week to recover.

Friday evening, we shopped for our green attire and then feasted on Fish & Chips at Joe Sensor’s to watch the Ohio State basketball game and prepare for our 7k Saturday morning.  We were home and in bed by 9 and it felt fantastic.  
Saturday morning was cold and sunny.  We had such an awesome group to run with.  We knew at least 15 people participating in this awesome event, so the wait to cross the starting line was at least entertaining.  The race was in Minneapolis along the river, so it was windy, but beautiful.
Hats = $3.50 at Target 

The run went pretty good for me.  I rolled my ankle towards the beginning and it hurt for a few minutes, but ended up just fine.  I was pretty happy that my pace was a little less than 11 minutes/mile.  I am not a fast runner, so when my time gets even a second or two better, that is an exciting moment for me.  Everyone else did AMAZING.  The boys finished around 41 minutes and the other girls were all in between them and myself.  
Felt pretty good about this.  My legs were no where near as sore as I thought they would be, so that’s a huge plus.  I found my sissy for a quick picture after the run and then we headed to Kieran’s Irish Pub for a free Finnegan’s beer.  We found Caroline & Christina there in neon green running pants and hung out with them for a while.  It looks way warmer out than it actually was.
We made the trek over to St. Paul after getting some food.  Things were crazy there.  We celebrated the whole day there last year in the 73 degree weather.  It was a little different this time.  The lines were out the door for all the bars and indoor establishments.  We didn’t have too much time, so we headed to the outdoor patio at Burger Moe’s to stand by the bonfire.  We ran into some very interesting people there including a nun smoking cigarettes and high fiving everyone.  We had to take off at 4 to head to family dinner, so I was bummed that we didn’t get to really dive into the holiday spirit.  On our way out, we watched a girl puke in the road right in front of a news camera… I really hope her night got better.  
Yes, he has a shamrock tattoo on his face… We went to family dinner with J’s relatives from Arkansas and had some fabulous taco fiesta.  After dinner, we went to celebrate Brady’s birthday back in Minneapolis, but let’s be honest, by that time, I was done.  I walked in to their apartment, drank 1/2 my Strongbow Cider and pretty much fell asleep on their couch.  I had to send an apology text Sunday for being some a fun hater.  I was just SOOO tired.
Sunday morning, my dad called and enticed us with pancakes and cupcakes.  We brought juice & Rumchata and we have a great little family breakfast – minus my mom, she’s in Mexico (I’m green with envy.)  Justin and I went and saw Oz.  I didn’t love it.  I thought James Franco was better than I was expecting and Mila Kunis was not as great as I wanted her to be.  I was mostly excited about my large, salty pretzel.  The rest of my afternoon involved pizza delivery, Homeland and comfortable dogs.
Next year, we will be back in St. Paul all day long – most likely at the Liffey.  The weather will be 70 degrees again.  Until then, I’ll just keep practicing and pretending it’s not Monday today.