Shamrock Run race report

It felt good knowing that I wasn't the only crazy person out today. I had over 16,000 crazies to run with. Between the 5, 8 and 15k runs and the 5k walk, there was an attendance of over 16,000 people. This may help to show how big the event was

Kristin and I were able to meet up with Tony and Ernie before the race. I was also planning to meet up with one of my co-workers husbands, Darin who was also running the 15k, but I couldn't find him.

As I was warming up for the start, my bladder decided I had to go. I went to the porto-john's and the lines were huge, and I didn't think I would have time to hit them and start the race on time. The lines were about a block long for each grouping of porto-johns. I figured I would have to hit the first or second set of john's along the way.

Meeting up with Tony and Ernie before the race was really cool, and it was nice to be around other people who were doing the race and you knew. For some reason I couldn't find Darin at our pre-defined meeting spot. Amazingly, when we were lining up for the run, we saw each other!

Tony and Ernie were hoping to hit the 15k in less than an hour, so they were staged much further up than I was. Darin and I have never ran together, so I told him to drop me if he ever felt like I was holding him up. Darin has ran a marathon and he has done several triathlon's, I think one was a half or a full IronMan. Plus, he was in the Army for 10+ years and he now is a fireman, so he is in damn good shape, although he is rather modest with his own assessment of where he is at.

So, Darin and I started middle of the pack. Since my times are usually at the middle of the pack, that is usually a good place for me to start. With so many people, this was maybe a bad place to start. I was constantly boxed in surrounded by much slower runners and I was spending too much time and energy getting around these people. My problem is that I don't want to start too far up, because I don't want to hold up people who are far faster than me. I forgot to ask Tony, but I wonder if they had 10 min/mile pacers at the front, where they do not belong as far as race etiquette goes. 

After we were started Darin told me he really needed to use the porto-john as well. At about the 1 mile mark, there was a porto-john with a short line, maybe 4 or 5 people, so we both stopped and hoped the line would run quick. there were 3 women in front of us, and well, we all know women take longer than men to do anything restroom related. I guess if they are in a race, they can go damn quick! It was awesome. It did take us a couple minutes, plus add on the couple minutes it took us to cross the start line, so every time they called out the time, we were about 7 minutes behind the race clock, compared to our actual running time.

While we were waiting for the porto-john, the trailing cars passed us. How embarrassing was that? All I could think was I better catch up to those cars, otherwise I will be embarrassed. I mean, these are all people who are running a 15k, so they aren't slouches, right? Anyway, we get out and we immediately started running again. We were pacing pretty good, around a 8:30 pace, and very quickly we caught the back marker pace cars and passed them. This happened just as we turned on broadway and the road gradually goes up. But we were a long way away from the pack. By the next mile, we had caught up to the tail end of the main pack, before the main climb up Terwilliger Blvd started. One of the strangest things I have seen in a race, and it must have something to do with the longer distance. Just before the start of the main climb a bunch of women started peeling off on to this trail. I am sitting here thinking, what the hell, they are going to take the shortcut? Nope, they were all peeling off for the bushes to take care of "business". It made me chuckle a little. Not often you see women running for the bushes.

So, then the climb starts in earnest, and almost immediately my IT band started flaring up and hurting. I shortened my stride a bit and was able to get it to become a dull pain. The climb was just a three mile grind. Nothing was crazy steep, but it was just a grind. Darin and I were constantly passing people on the climb, which made me feel good, since I am a horrible climber.

At the top of the main climb, there was a bag pipe "band" in true Irish fashion. Well, I thought this meant it was all downhill from this time on. My legs had a really hard time going quicker on the downhill and they felt worse than when I was climbing, and my IT was really hurting me on the descent causing me to slow down. At the bottom of this fairly long downhill, it turned out there was more climbing. It was a short climb, in comparison, but my legs felt like they were chunks of wood that I was trying to maneuver, rather than being fluid like I am used to. I finally got my cadence back to feeling right, but the downhill came again, and I was in pain again.

Darin was great though, he hung with me the entire time and we talked quite a bit of the run. It was great having someone to pace with on the run and to take your mind off of things.

So, the downhill was under way, and I tried to find something that would work with my IT band. I could have gone faster, not much but some, and I didn't want to injure myself, so I tried to keep it on that fine line.

with about 300 meters left, I saw Tony, who I figured had finished 30 minutes ago. Tony decided to run with me for the last little bit. Tony was pretty sore as his muscles had definitely cooled down and it is harder for the muscles to run again. It was great to have Tony pace me for the last little bit to push me. Every time I would talk, or try to talk, he would say shut up and run harder!!! Then we saw Darin's wife and one of my coworkers on the side where I went to say hi, as I ran by, and Tony yelled again, shut up and RUN!!! I have never really trained all out and this is my first year of really racing, and I was thinking about it while he was telling me to shut up and run faster. He is right, if you can talk, smile, whatever, you aren't pushing yourself hard enough! It was great to have him there telling me to kick it in gear. So, I really did push it. I have always been about endurance, not max effort, which I definitely need to improve on. So, for me, it will be a great queue when I need to push, shut up and RUN!!! 

Okay, so here go the stats.

As my previous post said, I would be happy to finish in under 10:15/mile average pace. I finished with my running pace averaged at 9:35 per mile! I was very happy about that.

I am pretty sore, but I stretched out, used the foam roller and really dug in to my muscles and I am feeling better.