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I know I've been bad about posting race reports lately, so I figured I'd actually post something of substance this time around.<br><br>
The weekend was off to an exciting start with the arrival of Tonya and Phil on Saturday. They stayed at my place on Saturday night, and I stayed at Vanessa's. After they arrived on Saturday we checked out my neighborhood a bit, including 2 stops at the running store, a walk over to the local trail, and lunch at Subway. Oh yeah, we played Rock Band too (I demand those pictures)! Eventually I headed off to Vanessa's and we were all on our own. I was also very excited for V because it was going to be her debut 8k race.<br><br>
So race morning, the weather was not great. It was maybe low-mid 30's with occasional sprinkles and decent (10 mph or so) winds. This was still much better than the snow showers that were predicted earlier in the week though.<br><br>
V and I arrived quite early, but that's definitely okay by me. I have this bad habit of having to pee like 50 times before a race. Luckily in the Shamrock Shuffle there are TONS of port a potties. So waiting in lines is not really an issue. I actually ran a 1/2 mile warm up with V and then after peeing AGAIN I did another 1/2 mile by myself. There were still almost 25 minutes left before the gun, but I noticed they were already closing off Corral A. WTF? So I went in and the guy was saying they were closing the corrals in 2 minutes. Ummmmm, whatever. So, there I was, stuck in my crowded corral, 20 minutes before the gun, without any other opportunity to warm up. I was VERY jealous of the people in the Top 100 corral, because they were able to run back and forth out past the starting line. But everyone else in all the other corrals was sorta forced to just stand there. I also get VERY annoyed when people push past others while standing in the corrals. It's like "buddy, we're all screwed, so stop pushing past me, jerk!"<br><br>
Anyway, eventually the wheelchair racers took off and everybody else followed a minute later. The first mile was actually quite crowded, and I was unable to find my pace early. I WAS happy to see that Bank of America put carpets over the grates on the bridges. However, the carpets barely covered half of the bridges, so it wasn't a complete covering. Oh well. I've seen enough people trip, slip, and fall on those grates during races, so I made SURE I was on those carpets every time we went over a bridge. We also lost our GPS signals within the first mile, as we went under a long tunnel. This was expected though. I knew beforehand to set my Garmin to "manual lap." First mile was 6:22.<br><br>
I made it a goal to try and pass some of the elite females, including Tonya. I DID pick off a few of the women that I know from other local races, but unfortunately I never did get to KR's own elite female. Oh well. It was good motivation to not "mail it in" and run like 32:00 or something. After mile 1 things opened up more and I wasn't trapped, so that was good.<br><br>
After the 1.5 mile point I saw an idiot guy (spectator) try to cross the street in front of the people in front of me. There was a HUGE collision and many runners went down. I was able to swerve away just in time, but one of the guys who fell ended up with bloody scrapes on his forearms. I think the pedestrian got the worst of it though (GOOD). Seriously, the guy couldn't have waited a couple minutes to cross the street? Blah.<br><br>
Honestly, the rest of the race was pretty uneventful. I hung neck & neck with one of the elite females for about 2 miles, then pulled ahead near mile 4. Never saw her again. I picked up speed over the last 2 miles and ran a negative split (splits down below).<br><br>
After a decent sized hill just before the finish, I really kicked it in. Probably passed a good 20 people or so in the last tenth of a mile. That was fun. Afterwards I met up with Tonya and RunAsics, and we chatted for a few minutes. Then Tonya and I waited in the <i>ridiculous</i> gear check line for 20+ minutes. I tried to see Vanessa finish, but I somehow ended up missing her and it turned into a big fiasco because it took us over 40 minutes to find each other. When we finally did find each other, we were both FREEZING, so we called it a day and headed home. It was a great race, but it would have been nice if it was just 10 or 15 degrees warmer.<br><br>
I ended up with 30:57, which is 32 seconds off last year's PR time. I'm still pretty happy with it. I ended up with a decent amount left in the tank afterwards, so I guess I could have ended up running a little faster, but I definitely wasn't in PR shape this time around.<br><br>
Oh yeah, but I did run a very close negative split, so I'm happy with that!<br>
1: 6:22<br>
2: 6:12<br>
3: 6:17<br>
4: 6:10<br>
final 0.97: 6:02 (6:14 pace)<br><br>
Final Time: 30:57<br>
Overall: 224/22558<br>
Male: 205/10383<br>
Age Group: 59/2690<br><br>
And V ran 46:52, completely shattering her 50 minute goal. Sweet!
The weekend was off to an exciting start with the arrival of Tonya and Phil on Saturday. They stayed at my place on Saturday night, and I stayed at Vanessa's. After they arrived on Saturday we checked out my neighborhood a bit, including 2 stops at the running store, a walk over to the local trail, and lunch at Subway. Oh yeah, we played Rock Band too (I demand those pictures)! Eventually I headed off to Vanessa's and we were all on our own. I was also very excited for V because it was going to be her debut 8k race.<br><br>
So race morning, the weather was not great. It was maybe low-mid 30's with occasional sprinkles and decent (10 mph or so) winds. This was still much better than the snow showers that were predicted earlier in the week though.<br><br>
V and I arrived quite early, but that's definitely okay by me. I have this bad habit of having to pee like 50 times before a race. Luckily in the Shamrock Shuffle there are TONS of port a potties. So waiting in lines is not really an issue. I actually ran a 1/2 mile warm up with V and then after peeing AGAIN I did another 1/2 mile by myself. There were still almost 25 minutes left before the gun, but I noticed they were already closing off Corral A. WTF? So I went in and the guy was saying they were closing the corrals in 2 minutes. Ummmmm, whatever. So, there I was, stuck in my crowded corral, 20 minutes before the gun, without any other opportunity to warm up. I was VERY jealous of the people in the Top 100 corral, because they were able to run back and forth out past the starting line. But everyone else in all the other corrals was sorta forced to just stand there. I also get VERY annoyed when people push past others while standing in the corrals. It's like "buddy, we're all screwed, so stop pushing past me, jerk!"<br><br>
Anyway, eventually the wheelchair racers took off and everybody else followed a minute later. The first mile was actually quite crowded, and I was unable to find my pace early. I WAS happy to see that Bank of America put carpets over the grates on the bridges. However, the carpets barely covered half of the bridges, so it wasn't a complete covering. Oh well. I've seen enough people trip, slip, and fall on those grates during races, so I made SURE I was on those carpets every time we went over a bridge. We also lost our GPS signals within the first mile, as we went under a long tunnel. This was expected though. I knew beforehand to set my Garmin to "manual lap." First mile was 6:22.<br><br>
I made it a goal to try and pass some of the elite females, including Tonya. I DID pick off a few of the women that I know from other local races, but unfortunately I never did get to KR's own elite female. Oh well. It was good motivation to not "mail it in" and run like 32:00 or something. After mile 1 things opened up more and I wasn't trapped, so that was good.<br><br>
After the 1.5 mile point I saw an idiot guy (spectator) try to cross the street in front of the people in front of me. There was a HUGE collision and many runners went down. I was able to swerve away just in time, but one of the guys who fell ended up with bloody scrapes on his forearms. I think the pedestrian got the worst of it though (GOOD). Seriously, the guy couldn't have waited a couple minutes to cross the street? Blah.<br><br>
Honestly, the rest of the race was pretty uneventful. I hung neck & neck with one of the elite females for about 2 miles, then pulled ahead near mile 4. Never saw her again. I picked up speed over the last 2 miles and ran a negative split (splits down below).<br><br>
After a decent sized hill just before the finish, I really kicked it in. Probably passed a good 20 people or so in the last tenth of a mile. That was fun. Afterwards I met up with Tonya and RunAsics, and we chatted for a few minutes. Then Tonya and I waited in the <i>ridiculous</i> gear check line for 20+ minutes. I tried to see Vanessa finish, but I somehow ended up missing her and it turned into a big fiasco because it took us over 40 minutes to find each other. When we finally did find each other, we were both FREEZING, so we called it a day and headed home. It was a great race, but it would have been nice if it was just 10 or 15 degrees warmer.<br><br>
I ended up with 30:57, which is 32 seconds off last year's PR time. I'm still pretty happy with it. I ended up with a decent amount left in the tank afterwards, so I guess I could have ended up running a little faster, but I definitely wasn't in PR shape this time around.<br><br>
Oh yeah, but I did run a very close negative split, so I'm happy with that!<br>
1: 6:22<br>
2: 6:12<br>
3: 6:17<br>
4: 6:10<br>
final 0.97: 6:02 (6:14 pace)<br><br>
Final Time: 30:57<br>
Overall: 224/22558<br>
Male: 205/10383<br>
Age Group: 59/2690<br><br>
And V ran 46:52, completely shattering her 50 minute goal. Sweet!
