Run like a... shamrock... or something

I told you I’m a slow runner. I’m totally proud I finished the 15K in less than 2 hours, but um... I only really beat 20 runners in my class (female aged 30-34). Yeah, I rock. I know. Here is my official timing chip result:



Woo hoo! 1130th female! Put THAT in your pipe and smoke it! booya!

But, I can honestly say, even tho I was bringing up the rear of the 15K runners, I had a blast running this event.

So, the website says they had 16,000+ participants this year, up from 11,000 last year. Holy crud!



(um, sorry for the photo tag on all these. obviously I’d have to purchase them for those to go away, and who has the $ for that for a blog!?!)

So, yeah. It was pretty crowded.

Also, it being the Shamrock Run... all sorts of folks came out. Some weirder than others...





I showed up, found a spot on the top (8th floor) of a smartpark, and headed out to the waterfront to claim my event T-shirt and meet up with the TNT folks.

Just like how I finished the Portland Marathon, I intended to pace my friend (and mentee) Sheryl.

We watched the 5K runners leave and come back. Man, the 1st place guy was done in like 14 minutes. It was crazy. I went ahead and checked in my track pants and my coat at the clothes check, and then I was ready to go!

Finally at 8:40am, they blew the bullhorn that indicated the 15K was starting. It took a couple minutes to get over the start line, but after no time we were on the course. I started my garmin to track our pace/time.

And... we ran. and ran. I was pretty happy to be running actually. I love events like this...









We ran up and over pill hill. That’s the hill Terwilliger Blvd snakes over that OHSU sits on top of.

Here is the course map...



Yeah, the 15K challenge run was a monster compared to the other run options. heh. Most of the above pictures were actually taken after the big hill, on the second half of the course.

About 1 mile to the finish line there were some people dressed all silly handing the runners free small dixie cups of green beer. My running mates all passed, but I was like, hell! Sure! I can run 1 mile after a shot of bud. Why not? I took a cup and chugged it.... and burped the rest of the run.



And then I spotted the finish line ahead of me... and I started sprinting.

..

View Album

Get your own

Woo! Ok, sure, I was bringing up the rear of the 15Kers (out of maybe 3,000 15K runners, I was ahead of probably only 150-200 or so)... and at the end of the whole shamrock run really (all the other events finished before the 15Kers). But I DID finish somewhere around 10:30am, which kicks butt for how I was hoping to do.

I immediately got into line for the beer garden (I ran with my drivers license on me... oooh yeah). Got into the beer garden, and claimed my free beer (mmm... widmer!) before really thinking about anything else.

Also, it turns out the free chowder we got for participating in the run wasn’t made with bacon, so I went ahead and got my cup of that. It was all soooooo tasty! I found some of the other TNT peeps in the beer garden, and we all congratulated ourselves and found many reasons to click plastic cups together.

Then, eventually, I realized, I was the only one not in warmer clothes. I was starting to get cold. I finished my beer and wandered over to the clothes check area. There were only like a dozen or so bags left unclaimed at that point (11am). I got mine and found a chair and pulled my track pants back on while shivering. I was pretty done for the day at that point.

THE END!