Shamrock Shuffle

Another race is behind me. The Shamrock Shuffle was yesterday, and it was actually a pretty typical race. Nothing exciting or out of the ordinary happened (not a bad thing). The weather was cold, but not horrible, and it was paradise compared to last year. Standing around before the race was horrible, and I couldn’t feel my legs for the first five minutes or so of the race due to that cold, but after that, that feeling went away and everything was fine.

I don’t have a watch anymore, so I did the same thing I did last weekend on my practice run. I went totally off of feeling and ran until I needed to walk for a bit. I feel like I walked less during this race than I normally do, however when I was running I was running slower. This probably isn’t a bad thing considering my goal is to finish a 5K one day without having to take any walking breaks.

I finished the race in 1:13:12, which is about where I figured. My goal was to finish in less than 1:15. My time is average for me, but becomes a bit depressing when I hear that I came in 25,125th place out of 25,560. 36,000 people registered for the race and 25, 560 finished.

Congratulations to my sister who finished ten minutes before me, bum hip and all, and to my cousin who ran his very first race and finished in 45:28. Slow down Derrick, you are making me look bad.

Anyway, I am starting to get mixed emotions about the Shamrock Shuffle. I love this race because it gets me pumped to start running again every spring, and it’s pretty much the only race I do that’s not a 5k, but it is getting so expensive. On top of the high registration fee, you have to pick up your race stuff the day before at Navy Pier which means two days in Chicago. The price just piles up. I guess only time will tell what I do next year.
My next race is Ringing in the Spring on April 3rd in Valpo (yeah no South Shore to run!!!) I plan on taking a couple days off and then will start training for that later this week.

Happy Running!
Sally