Holyoke St. Patrick’s Day Road Race
Hey everyone at least I'm consistent in being inconsistent with blog posts. As the only person on the team developing this company it's hard sometimes to get to everything you want to. No worries though as the work does get done and as the cannabis industry keeps moving forward it will start to smooth out (hopefully). You will soon start to see new names and faces added to the team which is very exciting. Below is my experience at this years Holyoke St. Patrick's Day Road Race, a 6 mile run, I hope you get a chuckle.
So it's the morning of Saturday, March 17th and I'm feeling good as this is the 5th time running this particular road race so I've gotten comfortable with this races format. I had gotten my bib the night before so I didn't have the ever time consuming pre event of fighting to get your bib that morning. My plan this morning was to get up, gear up, coffee up, #2 up (or down), smoke up, then get to the race, in that order.
I arrived at my parking spot at 12:30 giving me a half hour before race time. It was super windy that day and hovering around the 30 degree mark so naturally I didn't want to stand at the starting line too long. Even though the weather was windy and kinda chilly it was still a beautiful sunny day so I was really only concerned about the massive headwind. When I got to the starting line I had only 15 minutes left till start, I was totally stoked about that. While standing there out of the corner of my eye something got me and I looked to see the easter bunny (full on mascot uniform) and two green care bears (also mascot quality) jump in line and I'm like "ok, easter bunny and his care bears cannot beat me" luckily they didn't come close. With 5 minutes left before start a woman's voice comes over the loud speaker and sings our national anthem now I'm not sure if it was planned or just pure coincidence but right after she got done singing I noticed people looking up so of course my curiosity got me and I followed suit to find a bald eagle soaring over the starting line. Its tail feathers sprawled out in the sun giving that very distinct white glow while also shimmering off its head. Everyone was chanting "it's magic!" and in that moment it really was. Announcer says "3 min till start!"
I wish I was at the front of the line to witness what happened next. The last we knew there was 3 min left till start and everyone was focused on the bald eagle and the easter bunny so I can't tell you if they did a count down from 10 till start but as far as I know they didn't and instead of using one of those little starting guns it sounded like a damn cannon. To say that it was funny to see an entire crowd of people all jump and flinch at once (including me) is an understatement. Know one saw that coming because like I said the last we knew there was 3 min left then BANG!, "oh my god!", "what was that!", Oh we're running!". Pure comedy.
Alright so we're off and running right into the wind for the first 3 miles, up 3 hills. Now if that sounds like it sucked well it did. We runners will gladly recognize when something is sucky or if we feel like shit but deep inside we hit this pleasure sensor that is unlike anything else no matter how many miles we put on and that keeps us going or maybe we are just masochists at heart. It wasn't until after running by Holyoke Community College I started to hear this bell behind me, the distinct cowbell kind of bell and it was getting louder. In my head I'm thinking "whelp I'm not looking back, I'll obviously find out what that is soon" as people started to laugh on the side of the road. Next thing you know this guy in a full on cow outfit charges right past me to never be seen again and even though that guy ended up being lightning fast and beating me that was definitely awesome. After that it was pretty much downhill from there, literally. I managed to get through the next two miles going past Holyoke High school and to the finish line while also managing to run the whole race without drinking any beer even though there were plenty of opportunities.
In the end I smashed my goal of under an hour by finishing in 46 min and I didn't throw up! That story is for another day. Next up on my radar is the Seven Sisters Trail Race in May as you may have seen me starting to post on social media about that. If you read this far I love you, thanks for tuning in and following Chronic Trips. Talk to you soon.
Cheers,
Seth Frappier
