St. Paddy’s Day Dash Down Greenville 5K

This was such a fun, festive race! Highly recommend you gather up your running friends and head on down to Greenville next year. The course was fairly flat with one steady incline in the middle. I lined up to the front to avoid dodging all of the walkers. Whether you walk, skip or run it’s definitely a good time and fun way to celebrate the holiday! Lots of people were already out at 7 am tailgating and plenty of people around to cheer you on. I beat my last 5K and finished in 24:30 so not too bad! I really enjoy the 5K distance to force myself to push the pace after running all of these back to back marathons and long distance. It’s a great challenge! There’s plenty of beer to go around and stay for the parade after if that’s your thing. Park in the neighborhood on the other side of 75 and walk over so you don’t get towed or stuck anywhere.

The Dash Down Greenville 5K is a decent 5K. My performance in the run was horrible this year, but I’m going to try and separate my personal performance with this review.
Location: Running down upper Greenville is kind of cool, and fairly unique. This is a highlight of the race.
Course: The course seems very flat… However, after you turn right onto one of the side streets, you’ll get hit with a hill. This killed me. The humidity didn’t help. Plan accordingly, runners…
Crowd: It’s a bit too busy (though, not as bad as the turkey trot, but bad enough that I felt like I spent the first few minutes of the race navigating through the crowd), but it’s tolerable.
Swag: The swag (at least in 2013) was a bit underwhelming. They gave out t-​shirts which looked cool, but were really thin and cheap. The best swag to give out in a 5K (in my opinion) is a runner’s tech shirt, and these shirts were cotton.
The RunOn tent here did sell some cool stuff here at bargin prices. (I got green compression socks here for pretty cheap.)
Parking: It SUCKS here. Do NOT drive here. Go find your nearest DART red-​line station with free red-​line transportation and take the DART. If you are ridiculous and decide to drive, plan on doing a 10k and expect to walk another 5k to the event start line.
Also, do not park in any areas that are off limits – you will get towed!
Costumes: I run 5Ks for time (I’m not very quick, but I’m trying to stay in some kind of shape). That being said, I don’t really get into all the crap surrounding the costumes. If you’re like me, I’d wear some running gear that’s green or in the spirit of St. Patty’s day.
Overall: It’s a very popular run, but be ready to deal with crowds and some drunk folks. (It’s still pretty early before the parade – you probably won’t run into too many at this time of day.) If you take the DART and follow my advice, your race should prove fun!

This was all sorts of fun. I loved seeing all of the costumes running around and I will definitely dazzle it up a lot more next year. I read the previous reviews and I do believe it has improved. There was a rule against strollers and dogs. HOWEVER, I looked through my professional photos online and saw that some lady in a stroller was cruising next to me in my best photo. How can I put that on my wall?!? «Yea Brandi you really ran fast … you and that lady with the baby in her arms!» is all I’m going to hear when I have visitors in my home. SMH I also did see one dog.
It was cool that people along the route were encouraging us and offering doughnuts n what not. I also appreciate that there was only one hill and it wasn’t very steep. Overall, this was my first 5k and I enjoyed it a lot. Note: Great parking is available next to Central Market if you arrive early.

I guess in a sense this is the 5K for anyone. Those who take it seriously (at the beginning of the pack) and those who prefer to walk and partake in all things that St. Patrick’s Day has been known to stand for… drink. I tend to like events that have something in common… like wearing green and celebrating a holiday.
Other bonuses is the prime location off of Greenville and once the race is over there is plenty to do… like daydrink, drink beer, drink liquor, shoot liquor or jelloshots. There is the parade which seems to run half the city and draws a large crowd. It just depends if this is what you’re into. I happen to think that if I couldn’t have walked to this event that I would prefer to skip it altogether.
I don’t know… the older I get the less I want to hang with a crowd like this. Everything in moderation.

Love the Dash. My brother in law beat me by like 20 seconds or something crazy like that… but this one is fun. The crowd energy is high and there’s a hill on the last half of the race that’s challenging. Though I sure as heck ain’t stopping for beer, you can’t beat the beer stops either… fun race.

Super fun race — I’d certainly run it again. Could do without the stumbling drunks (the drinking part is fun, I’m sure, but the drunkenness is obnoxious and excessive at 8:00 a.m.), for sure, but love that the race is pet-​friendly.

Granted — I knew what to expect because I saw (but did not participate in) the Dash last year. .. so I wasn’t at all disappointed.
I love that you get to drink and walk and that the parade after is fun and hilarious. What is better than being able to walk around outside on Greenville and talk to cops while you drink beer? Even Central Market gets on board and has live music in their café area after the Dash. There is plenty to do after you finish the Dash. .. and if you don’t want to «Do» anything, you could probably entertain yourself enough by just seeing what everyone wears to the Dash. I also really like that the Dash is dog-​friendly.
It would have been nice if the Dash itself was a little more organized. .. however, I don’t understand why timed runners don’t just go to the front of the line when start time is getting close. No one is stopping them. .. they have every chance to be on time and stand in the front of the line. When people are walking and drinking I think it’s a little much to expect that the Dash is going to be a competitive race.
I had a great time…and the only thing I regretted is that I wasn’t one of the «giggling putt-​putting cheerleaders» walking in a green tutu. I will definitely rectify that for next year!

OK, when it comes to certain Dallas traditions, I admit that I’m a little green. Appropriate here, right? Well, sort of. I think the joke is on me that I actually trained for this thing.
One of my goals this year was to run this race and I even set a time to beat. I know that the day is all about fun, crazy floats, beads and lots of green beer but I actually thought that the race part might be halfway legit. I got up at 6am, paid my $ 25 bucks (becuase they ran out of T-​shirts), stretched, stood at the starting line, got excited then…
I am so glad that the proceeds went to the North Dallas Food Bank, a cause I fully support, because this race blows. It was completely unorganized. I would have thought it could have dawned on someone to have people who wanted to run stand in front and the dawdlers in the back BUT NOOOOOOO! Those of us trying to run had to dodge legions of giggling putt-​putting cheerleaders and stroller toting soccer moms. Some poor guy wiped out trying to wave his way through the blockage.
It was the start of a great day and I’ll probably do it again next year. Just please, organize just a tiny bit or call it a «fun run» and don’t time anyone. Also, guy who set up a table with free beer at Mile 1, you rock!