Claddagh Pub 4-Miler

Ran the 4 miler part of the Wild Rover today, even though it was slightly snowy.  The course map had mentioned a challenging hill, so I was prepared for a hill akin to what you would find in San Francisco.  Actually though, I've never been to San Francisco, so both hills were really just imaginary.  Once I got there, I didn't even see a hill, so I began to think that maybe the people who ran it were just imagining things.  (They weren't.)
The beginning of the race was actually a bit of  mess.  There was no clear starting point and there were people everywhere.  They were going in all different directions and some were just hanging around the finish, so I really wasn't sure where to start.  Then I asked one of the traffic cops and he didn't know either, so it was all quite a mess.  Turns out, the start of the race was in the middle of the street, so it wasn't marked with an arch, and the street hadn't been closed off yet, so it was difficult to find.  When I finally did, Ryan decided to go wait at Dunkin Donuts for a bit, but they were closed.  Just to clarify, Dunkin Donuts was closed, on a Sunday morning.  If you're from around here, you understand just how absurd that actually is.  It seemed like there were a lot of coffee shops closed, which makes me wonder if Lawrence has some absurd rule about coffee shops being open on Saturdays and Sundays.
Anyways, the run started at 11 and basically started right on time.  For the most part, the course was flat and the weather wasn't too bad, just a little bit chilly.  I think the total count of participants was just under 1000, so not a huge race, but not tiny either.  Of course I used Zombies, run and Charity Miles, though I found it a bit harder to listen to the dude talking on Zombies.  I was distracted by all the runners around me and found myself paying more attention to them than to my app.  The first mile was totally flat and about half way through the 2nd mile we hit the hill.  I can honestly say I didn't find the hill that bad.  Some people were walking as soon as they hit the bottom of the hill, which seemed like kind of a cop-out.  They weren't even trying to run it.  But, who am I to judge, I have no idea why they weren't running it, so to each his own.  At the top of the hill they had a water stop but I decided to forgo it.  I've come to realize I can't drink while running and by the time I hit the top, I didn't want to stop for water, so I just kept going, heading downhill.  After that, the rest was easy.  We ended at the Claddagh pub, making one final loop around to cross the finish line.  As I was running, I didn't really feel too bad, no knee problems and I didn't feel like I had just run 4 miles.  So when I saw the finish line I just put on all the speed I had and crossed just in front of the girl who had been slightly ahead of me the whole time.
What was my final time you ask? Well, according to coolrunnings.com it was 37:50.  According to when I crossed the finish line, from the gun time, it was 38:30.  All that really matters is that I've gotten myself under a 10 minute mile, hills and all.  Of course, next weekend I had a 5K and a 8K on Saturday and Sunday.  The Sunday race is rolling hills, so we'll see how much under a 10 minute mile I actually am when it comes to continuous hills instead of just one.  Overall though, it was a fun race, I got a really nice running shirt and of course a medal. Sadly though, I lost my headband somewhere along the course route.  Oh well,  I would still consider running it again next year.