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.