Alex Hopmann’s Blog

Kat and I joined a crowd of 15,000 people to do the annual St. Patricks Day dash yesterday (Sunday). We have recently been getting into running as part of our plan to get into shape and our big goal is the Seattle Rock and Roll half-marathon at the end of June. Since we had never done a “race” before, we wanted to do a smaller one to get a feel for what its like being in a huge crowd of people before the bigger race.

The weather was miserable. It was 33 degrees and snowing which was the worst possible for the combination of cold + wet. Any colder and it wouldn’t have been wet- just snow. Any warmer and it would have been, uh, warmer (and just as wet). We were jumping up and down trying to stay warm before the start and while getting going helped warm up some, my hands were still pretty cold and we were in no mood to hang out after.

The Seattle PI (soon to be online only) has some good pictures to get a feel for what it was like. And here is the grainy photo of us from my iPhone-

Alex and Kat freezing in the snow before the St Pattys Dash

Overall the race bit was not bad. I was actually pretty happy that the 3.75 miles felt pretty easy for me, even with the slight uphill most of the first half. The crowd was pretty annoying. We were in the second wave where they still timed you, and followed some advice to start a bit back to avoid the main crush. I didn’t mind the folks running at just about any speed, but the many folks who were walking (even after just a mile or so) felt like they were much more in the way. There were also a bunch of people pushing strollers which were supposed to be strictly against the rules in the section we were in. I’m all for people working out that way, but in a race with 15,000 people it gets in the way of other people- get a baby sitter!

The other super annoying thing is that despite the timing chip that I believe can record start & finish times, they only posted the time from the starting horn which is pretty meaningless so the timing chip thing was a waste of time. I don’t especially care about the time in comparison to other people, but I’d like to have known what it was just for my own training goals.

I think we might be doing the San Francisco Bay to Breakers to try out a bit longer race in May. They seem to have a few more organized “waves” of people with different paces so maybe that will work out better.

Some progress finally-The New York Times is reporting that the NY Attorney General is investigating the A.I.G. contracts with employees-

“In his letter, sent to Edward M. Liddy, A.I.G.’s government-appointed chief executive, Mr. Cuomo said that he has investigated the insurance company’s compensation plan since last fall. The attorney general is seeking the list of employees who will receive these bonuses, as well as their job information and performances. Mr. Cuomo said that the company had failed to heed a previous request for this list.

He is also demanding the contracts guaranteeing these bonuses and the names of individuals who developed and negotiated the agreements.”