Shamrock Run update

So today was the race. I finished....

I got up this morning at 6am but it was REALLY 5am. Oh well I got ready and headed out. My wife and kids were going to come along but the 6 month old had a rough night so they all stayed home. I got on the road to head to downtown portland. I didn't pick up my bib yesterday. So after I parked I started following the many people who were going to partake in the events. I asked a couple of people where they were giving the bibs out at. Both people had know idea. I started to get nervous as people were running to the start, I was thinking I was going to miss my race. I finally found the tent where they had the bibs, first thing I noticed was it was Packed. There were over 20,000 people participating in todays events.

So I got my bib and timing chip and then got in line to get my shirt. I ended up not keeping my shirt because I didn't have anywhere to put it. And I didn't want to run with it. oh well.

Also the guy on the microphone mentioned that it was 37 degrees!! But I was pretty warm, I had a long sleeve dry fit shirt on under my shirt. the 15k'ers started at 8:40.

I lined up in the 9 - 10 min pace area. This is about where I was running when I was traning. And as you noticed I haven't ran much latley since I have had no posts. We were off for our first mile. It started in downtown portland. The first mile came up fast. Then from mile 2 through 6 it was ALL UP HILL! I'm not joking. I kept saying to myself ok this has to start going down hill now. But just more hills kept showing up. It was crazy. I kept on going, I told myself I wasn't going to walk. At about mile 3 or a little after I noticed something coming up to my left it was a wheel from a guy pushing his kid in the stroller. But it was right next to my feet and I started to lose my balance. I was very close to falling on top of the kid and the stroller but some how I regained my balance. The guy looked at me and said "sorry". I was blasting my music in my mp3 player so I'm sure that made me less aware. So the next 3 miles to mile 6 were tough. I was going pretty darn slow. By the time I hit 6 i heard a guy say "the hard work is over". So right after that it was down hill and pretty much flat. Mile 6 went by pretty fast. I tried to tell myself that at mile 7 I was going to pick up the speed, but I just didn't have a lot of energy at that point. But I didn't walk. I saw this guy who was near me. By appearance you would never think this guy would be able to finish a 15k. He was rather large. I was trying to stay ahead of him. But after my mp3 player fell to the ground I just couldn't catch him or pass him. The last mile was rough, I felt like I was barely moving. After I finally crossed the finish line I wanted to get some free chowder and something the drink. There were so many people. We were all bumping each other. I finally got my free Chowder and it was great. After that since I was by myself I decided to take off. I was sooo tired. I was walking to my car and my hands were hurting. They were so swollen, I think it was lack of fluids. I finally got to my car and headed home. I had a great time. I will definitely do this race again. I finished in 1 hour 42 minutes. Turns out I averaged 11 min miles.

thanks for reading,
Chuck