Shamrock 2013

This past Sunday I did my first race of the season.  It was the Portland Shamrock Run, and I ran the 15K option.  I figured this was a good measure of my training for the 1/2 marathon I'm doing in May.  It was a very cold morning.  I had to scrape the ice off the car.  I drove to the MAX station.  The shuttle stop was busy with activity as about 100 runners were also waiting for the train.  I guess it takes a crazy kind of person to get out of a warm house or bed and go for a cold run on a Sunday morning, but there we were.  I got down to the race start about 40 minutes early.  So I had time to walk around, use the port-a-potties.  But then I was ready to go!  I wanted to get the race started.  The sun was peaking out of the clouds, and it looked like the rain was going to stay away long enough for us to do our race. We started at 7:40.  The route is hilly, and it tested my training.  But it felt good to run.  When I was done, I was hoping that Jeff and the boys would make it down in time to see me finish.  But they got stuck on MAX.  It had to stop because it was in the path of runners, and they made the trains wait while the runners passed by.  Eventually I decided to head home, and it was while waiting for a train to pick me up that I ran into Jeff and the boys.  They had finally made it down.  But it was still quite cold, probably around 40 degrees, so I was happy to head home, take a hot shower and eat something.  It was a great race, I had a lot of fun, and it's a good feeling to have the first race of the year behind me. 

After the Race