This weekend I traveled back to the hometown of Holyoke, Massachusetts where I took place in the annual Holyoke St. Patrick’s Day Road Race. This race has grown to be the absolute best race in Western Massachusetts (and arguably the state/region) and close to 7,000 runners took place in yesterday’s event.

The Holyoke St. Patrick’s Day Road Race is a 10k that travels through the streets of Holyoke and hands down is one of the more challenging courses you will find. Runners start off in the downtown section of the old paper mill city and then head up-town running up some pretty substantial hills. At about the 4 mile mark the race begins a nice descent down Cherry Street and back toward downtown Holyoke.

The running conditions this year were absolutely beautiful as given the timing of the race you could be dealing with snow, sleet and cold temperatures. However, this year there was mild temperatures, some pretty nice cloud cover and the sun broke out just about as the race was ending. Absolutely ideal running conditions!

Thanks to all the fans who lined the course this year and cheered runners on! At some points along the course the crowds were 3-4 rows deep and the last .2 stretch of the run toward the finish was more crowded than I have ever seen it before.

This year, local runner Zach Hine won the race which is the first time a local runner has run in 20 years. Typically the Kenyan contingency takes home the prize, but Hine, who was just part of the US Olympic trials, ran a stellar race to win the prize!

I finished the race with a time of 50:40 good for 8:06/miles. What I was most pleased with is that I shaved just under 2 minutes off my time from last year!