Shamrox 15k Race

Hey everyone! I hope you’ve all had great weekends. I’m currently snuggled into my couch with Mac under a blankie, so we are doing pretty darn good. 🙂

We did lots of St. Patrick’s day celebrating yesterday! It all started with the Shamrox 15K race in downtown Springfield. It was hosted by Dublin’s Pass and Ultramax Sports, a local running store, and it was one of the best local races I have done. It was well organized and had lots of support and post-race goodies.

We arrived about 20 minutes before the race. I immediately headed into Dublin’s Pass (restaurant right by the start line) to use the restroom. I refused to have a repeat of the mile 2 potty break from the Little Rock Marathon!! The starting chute was already filling with people and they were calling the 15k participants to the start line, so Nick snapped my picture before I lined up.

It was around 45 degrees and sunny, so I opted to wear a green tank and running skirt. I was cold during this pic, but that went away by mile 2! I only waited in the starting chute around 5-7 minutes before we took off. But we first got to hear the national anthem played by a local bagpiper.

I think bagpipes are so cool!! I was lucky enough to be right next to this guy so I could really see what was happening. It was definitely not a typical start to my Saturday morning!!

After the national anthem, we started the 15K right at 8:05 am.

It felt like a lot of people were there as we took off! I always hate taking off at races because I run too fast and weave around people to get away from the crowd as quickly as possible. But I was definitely running way too fast. My RunKeeper app read off my pace at 10 minutes in… And said I was running at a 7:58/mile pace. Oops!!! Slow your roll, crazy woman. I made an effort to calm it down and slowly got my pace down to around 8:15-8:20. Which is still fast, but I knew I could hold it for most of the 9 miles ahead.

All the runners around me slowly faded as we hit the 3-4 mile zone during the race. It was getting warmer and I could tell a lot of others had dressed for cooler temps. Long black sleeves and full length pants were not going to cut it at 50 degrees and sunny! They were making me sweat just looking at them. I passed lots of people and was getting passed here and there. And then mile 6 hit. And it came with hills. All the way through mile 9. Ugh.

I couldn’t believe the hills we were running on. I didn’t even know hills like that existed in Springfield! This is when the race became mental for me. ‘You are a freakin’ marathoner. Do not let these hills win on a 9 mile course.’ And for some reason this motivated me to actually run faster up each hill I came too.

I was at the finish line before I knew it. Mainly because I wasn’t expecting to finish so fast. I even thought to text Nick that I had 1 mile to go. And he was glad I did as he wasn’t expecting me to be done yet either! I crossed the finish line in 1:16:09. Nick tried to snap a frantic photo of me, and somehow took it in black and white.

Woohoo!! The best part of this race was the finish line. I immediately got a finisher’ pub glass. And was then ushered into the beer garden to get some refreshments!

I was amazed when I went to the food line. I saw the normal bananas and granola bars. But then I was also offered a hot breakfast burrito! Umm, really?? Yes please!!