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Hello and welcome to my blog! My name is Nancy. I decided to retire early and my last day at the Fire District was December 31, 2020. My dream to do this pigs 'n poultry thing full time started on January 1, 2021. So far so good...

Monday, March 15, 2010

21,000 people...

...is a lot of people!

Shamrock Run 2010 was a blast! There were a ton of people everywhere we went, but overall it was a pretty well organized event.

Tom and I picked up our bibs and timing chips Saturday morning at the Adidas Campus on Greeley Avenue in Portland. We were kind of driving around trying to figure out how to get to Greeley - once we figured it out we came upon traffic that appeared to be going to the same place we were, so we figured we were heading in the right direction. Getting in and out of that facility was so EASY...crazy easy...and thus we were on our way to our first Shamrock run!

The 8K race started last so we had some time to get there and look around before getting all lined up to run. We picked up Sally & Stephanie to head downtown together and hung out with them before the race started. Actually, once we decided to check our extra clothes and personal items, we were separated. Only then did it occur to me that we could watch the 5K runners coming in; so we went to see if I could spot anyone from work, but it was too late since the runners coming in were the slower bunch and closer to 45 minutes - my work people would have finished long before then. I ended up not seeing anyone from work :(

The race itself was a blast! At the beginning while heading up Burnside Sally passed us and that was the last we saw of her! Tom and I continued to run together for just over a mile. When we got to Broadway and the climbing started. I told Tom to go and run...I didn't want him to hold back - I really wanted him to run his own pace and find out what he is capable of running over 5 miles. Even then, I was able to spot him in the crowd for a few blocks, but once we got up to the Schnitz he was gone. Aaah, hills....even though I haven't trained much on hills, running up Broadway wasn't all that bad, I only walked about 3 blocks of it and pretty much ran the rest of the course. There were a couple of times on the course that I went into robot mode and I was just a little running machine, chugging up the hills and not thinking too much about how much I don't really like hills, because I really don't like them...really. The downhill on Naito Parkway was a nice end to the run. That was just plain refreshing after running up for a couple of miles. The best part was when I decided to PASS people. Now I know I can do it if I set my mind to it...FUN! Usually people are passing me left and right...but this time there were plenty of slower runners (and I'm pretty slow) that I had a boost in confidence!

The one thing that was messed up was a cop stopping runners at one intersection to let traffic through. Had I thought about it then,  I would have stopped my watch and started it again when we started up again. That way I would have gotten my true time and not what the timing chip said. Oh well...there is always next time. Also, I was a little annoyed at this because I was trying to catch up to a woman who was sporting a pair of barefoot running "shoes". I hesitate to call them shoes, but she had them on...check these babies out...

Aren't they crazy looking? She did not look as if she were enjoying her run either, but who am I to say. They just look plain weird.

Anyway, my final net time was 1:01:56 which includes the stop at the intersection. I don't remember what my gun time was, but I think it was 9 minutes more...my average was calculated from this time which I'm not counting. I'm pretty happy with my time though and I know that I'll never be fast, but I'll always finish strong!

Since I have been running pretty consistently since the middle of October, this event helped me to realize that I'm not training for nothing. This run was by-far the best run I have run since starting running a couple of years ago...good running shoes, a gym membership and trying to stay consistent has been the key to good running! I look forward to more training and getting out on my bike more. The Spring Classic Duathlon is up in a couple of weeks and I'm looking forward to doing that as a warm up to Blue Lake in June!

Run-Ride-Run Baybee!

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