Shamrock 8k

Saturday morning hubby and I ran the Shamrock 8k. For him, it was a down grade from the marathon/half marathon he was going to run. He's been fighting injury and had to defer. Instead of doing nothing, he decided to at least run the 8k and I ran the 8k to complete the Dolphin Challenge again.

We arrived at the start line about 7:30 a.m. for an 8:00 a.m. start. The temps weren't too bad, around 52 degrees. We hung out, then headed to our corrals - hubby to corral 2, me to corral 5. I was pleased to once again not be in the last corral. LOL!

The race got underway on time, which is always good. Being so far back meant I didn't get started really until about 10 minutes after the start. That's o.k. I had a nice conversation with two ladies who were running their first race. They were sweet to chat with and I hope they had a great race!

As my corral got to the start area, the announcer said he saw his favorite sight - runners on both sides of him! We started off through the large Start arc

and I laughed as the live band just beyond starting playing Blink-182's What's My Age Again? Blink-182 is one of hubby's favorite bands and I had to laugh that they were playing that song. The start was chaotic honestly. So many people and many of them not understanding the whole corral system. I was stuck behind lots of people who started off walking, which made it hard to get a good start. As I ran I thought races should switch from what time do you think you'll finish to "runner," "run/walk," or "walker." Then the runners and run/walkers know where to line up and walkers were in the back. This may sound mean, but as a slow runner I deal with this all the time. I don't want to screw the fast runners who are running for prize money/medals, but it seems as if no one considers that slow runners still want to have a good race too.

Anyway...we ran down Atlantic Avenue for about 2 miles. The race takes you past much of the restaurants/hotels/activities that make up Virginia Beach. It's so flat. It's so nice. LOL!

And don't forget all the fun costumes!

Once you get past the first part of the course on Atlantic Avenue, you turn onto the boardwalk. It's such a fun part of the race honestly. I enjoy seeing all the runners ahead of me and the ocean on the side. To me, it's a pretty unique experience. Maybe not to everyone, but to me it is.

We headed down the boardwalk and enjoyed the view. This is my favorite part of the race and I took it all in. We then turned off the boardwalk and back onto Atlantic Avenue. For some reason the distance on Atlantic Avenue this time seemed long. Not sure why. But, we came up to the turn to the boardwalk

At this point I checked my Garmin and had about 6 minutes til the hour. I really wanted this race under 60 minutes. I decided at this point not to check it again until I crossed the finish line. I just ran, not knowing what would happen.

Along the way I saw hubby standing on the side of the boardwalk. Phew! He finished! I hit the finish line and was happy to finish and be standing up. I looked down at Garmin hoping beyond hope that I might have PRed, even if I didn't manage a sub-60 8k. I was disappointed. I finished in 1:02:50, 59 seconds slower than last year and 2 minutes and 51 seconds slower than I had hoped. Crap.

I went down the boardwalk, picking up my medal as I went about to cry. Honestly. I know it sounds sad, but I was really upset. As I waited in line for my medal, I heard music coming from the party tent. And I laughed. How could I not? As I stood there fighting back tears, Bob Marley's Everything Is Gonna Be Alright was playing. Alright Bob. I'll take your advice. It is going to be alright.

After grabbing my medal, food, water, and koozie, I found the hubby and we went to party in the tent.

And thank heavens we did! While I felt a drop or two of rain hit me as I walked through the finisher's line, it sure let loose after we managed to get in the tent. It poured! Oh my goodness! I felt so bad for those still out on the course. We hung in the tent until the rain calmed down and enjoyed our adult beverages. The band was great, the people were fun, and we just celebrated running the race.

And now it was time to get ready for the Shamrock Half Marathon...

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Friday and Saturday, including the Townbank 8k

Friday

Friday turned out to be one crazy day!  We dropped off our cute little Higgy and Pooka for boarding and off we were to Virginia Beach.  We wanted to be out the door about 12:00 p.m., but didn't get on the road until closer to 12:45 p.m.  Oops!  So, instead of getting to the expo at 5:00 p.m., we'll get there about 6:00 p.m. I think.  No biggie.  What idiotic thinking!

We were moving along fine, until we hit the DC area, I believe.  Then traffic.  Awful, awful not moving traffic.  Not moving to the point I thought we wouldn't get to the expo and there would be no dolphin challenge for me.  I was pretty upset, but being there wasn't much I could do about it, I tried to keep it to myself.  But, hubby contacted a friend who vacations in Virginia Beach every year and we were able to get some new directions.  And with new directions came hope.

And with hope came us reaching the Shamrock Expo at 8:00 p.m.  For those who want to do the math, that would be 7 hours after leaving the house. Ugh.  We headed in and got our bibs.  I had to hit up two different tables to get the 8k and half stuff.  It was well worth it.

 Then it was off to the Shamrock Store to see what was there.  Because getting a long-sleeve t-shirt, short-sleeve technical shirt, then a hat and finisher's sweatshirt really isn't enough.  LOL!  I ended up with some sweat stuff!  A funky sweatshirt

A fun pair of socks

And a travel mug (that's not on the website...).  I liked a long-sleeve technical shirt, but they did not have my size (which is crazy to me because that size is a medium!!!).  Hubby picked up a sa-weet jacket and by this point the expo was over.  The reason?  The line to pay was so freaking long!  It was fine.  We got our goodies and headed out the door.  But not until I stopped off and picked up a cute decoration for my shoe.  :-)  I got a shamrock from BeeCause Charms.  They are the same charm people I grabbed my Princess shoe charm from at Princess.  Very nice people and from Philly!  Gotta love people wearing their Phillies pride t-shirts.

From the expo, we checked into the hotel.  I started to lay out my clothes for Saturday's run.  We hadn't eaten since breakfast and I wanted to get my stuff ready in case we got back late.  Just as we were about to head out to eat...what, we had no idea!...the fire alarm for the hotel went off.  I felt like I was back in college with a fire drill.  We headed out and went to dinner.  What was the point in hanging around?

Dinner took to us to Doughboys just down the street from the hotel.

We ordered beers from Hawaii, which was pretty good and an appetizer of cheese covered bread sticks that came with marinara sauce.  Dinner saw us chowing down on a yummy tomato and cheese pizza.  Pizza is our normal Friday night dinner, so it worked out.  Plus the pizza was delicious!  While at the restaurant we could see the fire trucks heading to the hotel.  We just kept hoping that it would still be standing after dinner....

And it was!  We went back to the hotel after dinner and everything was still standing.  Phew!  We finished getting our stuff together for the morning's race and hit the hay!  It was a long day...

Saturday

We were up early.  Well, not horribly early, but earlier than I like.  The race started at 8:00 a.m., which wasn't too bad, especially since we could walk to the start from the hotel.  It's a perfectly located hotel for EVERYTHING.  Seriously... We got dressed and headed to the start about 7:15 a.m.  We got to the corral area and just chatted and people watched.  Lots of interesting costumes and people walking around.  Since hubby and I are vastly different in our race speeds, we parted ways with about 15 minutes to go.  He to corral 3, me to corral 5 (which for the very first time in Chris corral placement history was not the last corral!!). 

 
A nice photo of the start as I headed off.  I really had no goals for this race other than to finish.  I didn't care how long it took me, how much I might walk it, or what might happen.  The goal was the dolphin pin that I could only get if I completed both races. But, here's the thing, I didn't want to run this too hard because I didn't want to mess myself up for the half the next day.  It was uncharted territory for me.  How fast can I go without hampering my performance the next day?  So, I took the camera along and figured that would slow me down.

This may seem like a strange photo, but if you look in the background you will see people running.  That's the boardwalk and those are people who are faster than I.  LOL!

A pretty neat view.  This portion of the run was probably the best part of the 8k.  You run up the boardwalk with the beach and the ocean on one side.  It was probably the best part of the race.

So, you turn off here to go back onto Atlantic Avenue.  It's kinda mean in a sense.  See that white thing in the back of the photo on the right side?  Yea, that's the party tent.  You have to turn away from the tent.  Mean.  So mean.  But, honestly, it wasn't that much further until you reach it.

The first time I ran past Neptune.  I tried to get a better shot, but it's really hard to run and take photos at the same time.  LOL!  It isn't too much further from here to the finish line.  A bit further than I would like, but that's the way it works with races...the finish line is always further away than you wish.

So, what was today's goals?  It was to finish.  It was to cross the finish line without dying.  When Garmin said the first half mile, I was at 5:55.  Ummm...what the heck???  When Garmie went off at 2.5 miles I was blown away - 30:08.  I've never run 2.5 miles that fast.  Ever.  And I was a tad bit nervous.  This was too fast.  So, I slowed down.  I purposefully slowed down.  I've never done that in a race.  I was just afraid running too strong Saturday could mess up my Sunday.  Well...when I hit the mats to set off the chip timer I looked down at Garmin and was blown away.  I set a PR.  Yes, after slowing down halfway through, I set a PR - 1:01:51. Crazy!  Going back to my last 8k, it's about 6 minutes faster.  Going back to Celtic Solstice 5 Miler in December it's about 3 minutes faster.  Wha????  Craziness.  Exciting craziness, but craziness nonetheless.

And what made it fun and exciting?  Turns out the hubby PRed as well!  He ran a heck of a race and finished before me (surprise, surprise!).  Once we found each other, which wasn't easy to do when you finish when other people do.  But that's a story for another post...

Afterwards we partied on the beach.  You can't go wrong with an after party on the beach.  :-)

After the party, we headed back to the room and showered.  It was nice.  Then we hit a place called Abbey Road for brunch.  I highly recommend it.  I had a breakfast that involved pretty much every food group - eggs, French Toast, potatoes, fruit.  It was yummy! 

We hit up the expo again afterwards because we really didn't see much of it the first time.  There were all sorts of interesting things and several things I debated about, but in the end we both decided there wasn't anything there we couldn't live without.  Then we headed back to the hotel for a little bit, changed, then headed off to dinner.

Dinner was yummy.  We hit up the same place we did last year and it wasn't not a mistake.  How can penne alla vodka be wrong???

And one of the best desserts ever...Napolean.  Oh so yummy...

After dinner, we kinda crashed.  All those carbs...back to the hotel.  We watched some hoops, Too Cute (Kittens), and called it an early night about 10:30 p.m. 

I'm going to complain...you've been warned

Big ole thank you going out to the hubby for showing me how to do a screen shot.  I'm really technologically impaired.  How I have a blog is beyond me at times....

The Yuengling Shamrock Marathon/Anthem Half Marathon/TowneBank 8k is rapidly approaching.  Meaning, it's this weekend.  The 8k is Saturday morning at 8:00 a.m. and the half and full marathons is Sunday.  The half starts at 7:00 a.m., while the full starts at 8:30 a.m.  I'm not a morning person, but it is what it is.

What I'm going to complain about is the temperatures.  Do you see those numbers??????  It is like a knife to the heart (for the record, I'm  not really sure what that feels like and also for the record I really don't want to officially find out).  I am a cold weather runner.  I live for winter when the temps are in the teens and I have to bundle up for a run.  I do my best when the temps are cold.  Give me a windchill of 5 and I'm a happy runner.

Give me the above temperatures and I feel cheated.  I sign up for fall/winter races for the temperatures.  These temps are unacceptable.  I will die.  They are 2011 Princess Half Marathon-esque.  But, that was Florida.  I should have anticipated that.  I mean, it is Florida.  But, Virginia Beach, VA????  Last year the temps were freezing! The wind was cra-zy!  It was a perfect day for running.  

This year not so much.  I'm having to re-evaluate my clothing options.  I have to find capri/long shorts to wear because long pants are out.  I normally would wear a long sleeve for the race, but now I have to figure out a short sleeve option. I wanted to wear fun holiday socks for the 8k, but I wore them for the 5k on Sunday and was I hot!  I'm going to have to wear normal boring socks.  :-(  Seriously, why are we in the middle of the 3rd hottest winter in history????

Tell me, what is your ideal running temperature?  Any suggestions to make the above temperatures bareable?

Happy first day of half marathon training to me!  Today starts the official training for the Yuengling Shamrock 8k and Half Marathon for me.  It seems like yesterday I was crossing the finish line at the Philadelphia Half Marathon (thank God!).  

I'm sticking with Jeff Galloway and his run/walk program.  This time though I am aiming for a program that focuses on time rather than just finishing.  Since I finished Philly in 3:16:20, I'm following the plan that trains you to finish between 2:30 and 3:00 hours.  This plan involves lots of speed training and crazily starts my first long run at 8 miles!  Crazy!

The positive is the program starts before Christmas which hopefully keeps me on track throughout the holiday.  I've got all sorts of workouts planned this month, all piggy backing on half marathon training.  So, here we go!  Yuengling Shamrock 8k and Half Marathon training ho!