Shamrock 2014

The 36th Annual Shamrock Run Portland has come and gone. My last Shamrock for a year or so as I would like to focus on training for the Spring Classic Duathlon in 2015. I may consider going back to the Shamrock in 2016 - we'll just have to see how things go with multisport first ;)

This year the Shamrock people decided to put photographers all along the route - in years past I don't believe that there were any. The photos were published on Facebook today and I decided to see how awful err, wonderful the photos were.

As it turns out...no one really looks good in running photos - although there is one of me from 3 or 4 years ago that was pretty good, but no more! Of the half dozen or so pics that they took of me I would say that the following one was the best. I don't look overly tired, I appear to be moving and I don't look like I want to die. Seriously, not flattering...not even a little...

Heading up Broadway - more than 2 miles into the 9.3 mile route

So, I searched for photos of Tom and Drew and man, those two looked GOOD! Check it out...

Check out the half clothed dude - that's not right!

Look at Drew...show off! He obviously did not get the memo that says no smiling during an event! Drew is awesome...love hanging out with him! Except during races because he is just too happy - haha. It's good that he runs with Tom, that way they can run a decent race and do well. Something that wouldn't be possible if they stuck with me.

I don't have much of a race report - just race photos to share. Running events are the same in one way or another - we train, we go, we conquer. The fun is being with our people!

We got to hang out with these cool people which we haven't really done in the past - we are very much go and run and then go home people - BUT afterwards Drew, Andy, Tom and I made a pit stop for a little food and coffee at Starbucks.

front row - Drew Swanson, Me, Alisha Smith, Alayna Salvato
back row - Andy Schultz, Mike Graves, Nate Smith

(photo was taken by Tom)

And Then There Was a 15k

2012 Shamrock Run Portland

So, my big crazy idea of a challenge for 2013 was training for and doing my first Half Marathon. Which happened on December 15. I'm pretty sure that throughout the training I kept saying that if things went okay that I would probably do the 15k Shamrock Run in March. You would think that I would have documented that crazy idea somewhere, but I don't see a mention of that possibility anywhere.

For the past few weeks I was pretty content with my decision to stick to the 8k race - it's a route I know and I know how long it takes to run it and so on.

However, this week as I have been trying (almost desperately) to find more team members one of our volunteers confirmed with me that he is committed to run and dropped off his registration to me at the station. Cool! I didn't think to look at his form until after a couple of hours of work, but when I did finally open his envelope, I noticed that he had checked the 15k. Interesting...I better check on this, could this be a mistake?

After a couple of days, I got an answer, sure enough he decided to run the 15k and now that puts the rest of us (me, Tom and another volunteer) in a later race. Tom had already said earlier this week that he would do it because he thought it would be a good challenge especially after having such a bad year last year; with his sciatica problem and nerve issues on the outside of his right knee which caused the "drop foot." Okay, two down - now to check with Jordan to see if he is up for the challenge - YES!

Oh. No.

I guess I'm going to do a 15k after all. It was a fairly easy decision to make. I don't want to wait around for at least an hour for the 8k to start and certainly not by myself. That's the non-social part of me, I like my people and all, but "my" people will already be running while I'm waiting around for the 8k to start. Also, because I know how long it would take me to do the 8k, I'm pretty sure that I'll be finishing loooong after the 3 of them finish considering that they will already have a hour "head start."

My big challenge for this year's Shamrock will be to finish not too far behind those guys. After we reconnect somewhere at Waterfront Park we'll get our chowder then head out for for coffee and granola at Thatcher's. Mmmmm, Thatcher's!

So yeah, the crazy continues.

Shamrock Run 2013

No pictures this year...so this is from Google Images.

 

The 2013 Shamrock Run is DONE!

This year was the best...I PR'd my 8k time by almost 5 minutes over my time from a couple of years ago. All the training that I put in for the past 7 weeks paid off! Tom did pretty well for his first run of the year too.

I extended an invitation to not only the paid personnel and volunteers, but to a few of the cadets who attend class at the station everyday. Drew Swanson decided that he would run this event and traveled with us on Sunday morning.

As much as I like to have Tom run with me, I like it when he runs his own race so that he gets an idea of how well he is doing too. So, having Drew run with him was a good option. Someone younger and might be able to challenge Tom a bit. As it turns out Drew hadn't run a whole lot in the weeks leading up to the Shamrock, only getting about two weeks of running in -training lite you might say. They had a good run together and they pretty much stuck together for the entire distance.

We started off kind of together - while Tom was getting rid of his sweatshirt the run actually started and Drew was ahead of me and I kept looking back to make sure that Tom was close by...eventually the crowd spread out and Tom and Drew were running together and I was slowly falling behind for the first mile or so. Then pretty soon I could no longer pick out Tom OR Drew's heads bobbing up and down ahead of me.

So, I was solo for pretty much all of the run. For me, running alone is a total mental game. I have to continually tell myself that I can do it...I don't have to stop and I don't feel bad. Seriously, EVERY single run, race or not. I spend a lot of time trying NOT to give in to my negative thoughts and trying to continually fill my mind with happy thoughts so I can enjoy the run. It takes some work, but I eventually get over the fact that I want to stop...it's windy...the sun is in my eyes...etc.

Finally, the positive self talk started to stick and I finally made it to the turn around and decided to walk a little - what I really wanted was water, which was a little further down the road than I thought it would be. So I estimated that I walked about 100 yards before getting my water and then started running again.

At that point I think I started to enjoy the run more and I thought that I would run until the next water stop and take a walk break. When I finally came upon that one it was so close to Broadway that I figured if I stopped I wouldn't make my time goal. So, I kept it up and tried to increase my speed little by little. In doing that, I was able to pass other runners on the hill - I'm usually the one being passed. When I reached Salmon Street it was time to turn and run DOWNHILL for seven blocks, woo hoooooooooo! With each block I was willing my legs to go a little faster, to lengthen my stride ever so slightly.

After steadily increasing my speed over those last blocks to the finish I started to feel more energy - and as I passed over the timing mat  I stopped my watch I found that I had reached my goal with about 20 seconds to spare! My time (according to my watch) was 1:00:59 (12:17 mile)! It was the best moment...with no one to share it with :(

It took a couple of minutes to get through the finish queue and I was so excited that I had reached my goal...that I didn't really concern myself with finding Tom and Drew right away. Once I got away from most of the crowd I saw them about 1/2 a block away, walking away from the finish and noticed that there was a nice gap between the both of them, so I quickly caught up with them and stopped just a little behind them as they were walking along...it took a couple of seconds before they noticed that I had joined them!

According to Tom, they were stopped for traffic once (I was stopped twice) and then they were caught up in the "foot traffic" jam at the finish. They were basically walking through the finish chute. Tom stopped his watch at the time he thought they might have reached the timing mat if they were running around 52:30-ish (10:30-ish mile) the chip time was 55:30 - my chip time was 1:01:53, stupid cars ;)

So in the big picture, even with Tom and Drew running together, it wasn't so fast that I was so far behind them really. Drew for his part, got to experience a little bit of the Portland scene and how cool it is that the streets were closed off for such a huge event. Also, he did great for his first event run and even said that he would be interested in running the 15k next year! I think we have ourselves a new event running buddy!

The best part of the day was just having the opportunity to hang out with Drew and get to know him a little better. We spent a little time at Thatcher's Coffee at Grand Central before parting ways for the day.

Next up...Blue Lake Duathlon??? Not sure at this point, we'll see how finances work out by the time May rolls around, but I'm pretty sure that I'll train as if we ARE going to participate at Blue Lake this year. If not the next run will be the 4th of July run in Ridgefield. We'll see what other fun things come up in the mean time :)

Bumpity, Bump

I really shouldn't expect so much at the beginning on the year. Week One of my Shamrock training went well, but then things went down hill the last couple of weeks. I started to feel a little sickly and then last week, a lack of interest in the Treadmill. I don't know why, but hey...I just didn't want to get on that thing...hee hee.

This past Saturday things changed and I was good and ready to go - 4.5 miles baby! There were the obligatory walk breaks, but only 3...yay for me!

Now, wishy-washy on a day off from work is pretty much guaranteed...

Yesterday was 3 miles. I generally like to run early in the morning, but I had an appointment to be at and I happened to sleep in until 7:30 - GASP! This girl does not sleep in that often! Then after my appointment we had to be at the church at 11:30, so no time to fit in a run between 9:30 and 11:30. I suppose w could have, but it would have been rushed. As the day kept going on, I started to feel like I didn't want to run. So at one point I declared to Tom that I didn't want to run, and that I could run on Tuesday (today) instead. We went and sat at the church from 11:30 to 1:00 and during that time I started to get a little stir crazy, so then I started to think that we should just go ahead and run anyway...at some point. After leaving the church we had to go to Starbucks and then while I was sitting there I decided that we definitely needed to go out. Too much sitting around!

I have to say that I'm not sure that going for the run was a good thing after all. I felt okay, not great...but we got it done and I guess that was the goal in the end.

Just. Get. It. Done.

When I have the "get it done" attitude, those runs end up not being fun at all. Although, it could have been the route too. I mapped out a route that would take us up 149th Street which is a slight uphill grind going to the east. The good thing is that it is/was an out and back course, so the going back part was nice as we were going down...in a slight fashion...hee hee. Still, I wasn't feeling so great afterward. At least we got out.

So this week I'm looking to get back on track with my training. Yesterday was 3 tomorrow is 3 and then Saturday is 4. I better check the weather for the morning...if there is a chance of rain, I may be running on the treadmill AND after work to get the distance done.

In all reality, I'm not really all that concerned about the Shamrock. This one is definitely for the fun of it. Being one of 35,000...a mediocre runner in the back of the pack. My PR goals are for later in the year, after I have had sufficiently trained myself back into some kind of decent running condition :)

Three and a half weeks baby!

Shamrock Training - Week 1

Last week I handed over my team registrations and we are at 21 members (I think). Woo Hoo!

Last Saturday I started a new training plan (7 weeks) and now I have skipped my 3rd training run. On Wednesday while I was sitting at work I wasn't feeling so great, so I decided that a run after work wouldn't be the best idea. Knowing who I am and that Pace Bunny is going to let me know what kind of slacker I am (hee, hee), I'll probably make up the run somehow in the next week or so. It was only a 3 miler so it's pretty much a piece of cake! I do plan to get out tomorrow morning, possibly without my sicky husband. I am contemplating repeating last weeks 4 mile run, but I'm not so sure that I want to do a monster hill. I'll probably just do the easy 4 mile route that takes me down to the library and back home. Easy-peasy.

The other thing about this new plan is that my first training run was 4 miles. As you can plainly see from my chart below, there were few runs that were over 2 miles....OYE. It was a bit of a shock, but I'll manage alright over the next few weeks.

My annual clothing allowance was included in my last paycheck, so I will be heading out to FitRight NW for a new pair of shoes soon. I have already ordered and received new sports bras. Moving Comfort is the BEST! I haven't worn one on a run yet, but I did try one on when I got home from work the other day and did some "laps" around the house. I'm happy :) I really should be using this money for clothes that I'll wear to work, but regular clothes shopping is not fun...I like looking at all the athletic stuff from socks to tops. Also, I have been known to run on the treadmill here at work, so my new purchases can be considered workwear!

36 Days Baby! Shamrock Run here we come!!!

SHAMROCK RUN BABY!

At the end of last week I had 6 Shamrock Run registrations (4 not counting mine & Tom's). I was sweatin' it a little bit. Today I have 18 total and possibly two or three more. Kinda crazy how things work out.

Will be handing these babies off on Thursday!

2013 Tee Shirt

1.7

(google images)

miles from meeting my goal AND there are 6 days left in the month!

Today Tom and I will be heading out and doing a little hill training. Down Bliss Road and through Shorecrest Terrace and BACK up the monster hill to Hathaway Road...yeah...it's gonna be great!

The cool thing is that I have already mapped it out and if we do the loop two times it will be 2.05 miles :)

Tomorrow will be long run day - possibly 3 miles or more depending on how I feel. Hoping for a nice, not so wet morning run.

Registrations for Shamrock are due next week, so I'm going to get myself a new running plan to train for the 8k distance. It will be a 7 week plan, but 5 miles is almost a breeze compared to the 7.5 miles that we did a couple of months ago! Kind of...

Pace Bunny, you're my new best friend!