2013 Shamrock Shuffle Recap

To say that conditions going into my very first Shamrock Shuffle weren't ideal would be an understatement.  I felt so frustrated and cheated by getting so very sick in the week leading up to the Shuffle that I was nearly in tears on race morning.  I had been training for this race since the beginning of the year, and after watching Bob do it so many years before, I was so excited to finally be joining him.  I still felt nowhere near 100% when I woke up, and had no idea how much of this race I'd even be able to run, but I was pretty sure my goal of finishing in under an hour was out the window.  So my goal at that point was just to finish.

Dropping Bob off at his corral

Thankfully, I was running with my friend Melanie.  To be honest, if I had been running this by myself, I may not have done it.  Since Bob was in corral B, we got down to the race well before 8, even though our corral didn't start until at least 9:15.  We didn't end up starting until 9:50, so I think the 2 hours we had to kill got me pretty psyched to run.

The skyline at Gear Check

Once we finally got started, we flew through the first mile in 11 minutes.  Whoa, that's the fastest I've run a mile in a while, and I was pretty surprised since I hadn't really run all week.  I knew that I should slow down and save some energy for the end of the run, but I couldn't put the brakes on.  We were keeping pace with the rest of the crowd, and I felt good and full of adrenaline.

We did the second mile in closer to 12 minutes, so we did slow down a little.  I was doing good until about the halfway point of the race, then I started getting a little tired and feeling really dehydrated.  I told Melanie I wanted to take a walk break once we hit the 5k mark, and thankfully there was an aid station not too far after that.  My legs were already feeling tired, but we were out in the sun, which was really starting to drain me.  I also barely ate breakfast because I couldn't stomach it (I did have half of an Ensure and some Gatorade, so I wasn't totally running on empty), and hunger hit.  So I had some gatorade and water at the aid station.  That, and the walk break were both super helpful.  Well that, and we totally got cat-called around mile 4, which was exactly the push I needed.

Hi Bob!

Once we got to the last half mile stretch, Melanie spotted Bob watching us from the sidewalk.  He was in the first wave, so he had time to get his gear, drink his beer and come and find us (thankfully, I sent him a Glympse!).  I hadn't actually considered he would come out since our plan was to meet at gear check, so when I spotted him, I got all choked up because I was so happy to see him, and so happy to be finishing this race.  He jogged along with us as far as he could, and pushed me up the hill on Roosevelt, which approaches the finish line.  As I started the hill, I noticed that I was at 56:50.  I wasn't sure I could make it to the top and finish in the next 3 minutes, but I sure wanted to try.  In the end, I finished in 1:01:30.  So I didn't make the hour goal, BUT I did knock 1:17 off of my last 8k, so I at least got a PR!  Considering how crappy I felt all week, and how low my expectations were going into this run, I'll take a PR!  And this just means I need to do another 8k to get under the hour mark.

We did it!