Shamrock Shuffle 5K

I'm back! Well, sort of. I don't know if I can consider it racing with how slow I am. But I ran my first race in nearly a year on Sunday! Here's proof! I'm the one in white amidst the sea of green. The Shamrock Shuffle is a St. Patrick's Day race, after all.

The Shamrock Shuffle 5K was my first race when I started training two years ago too. It seems fitting to start this round of training with the same race. Last year I was just coming off my stress fracture and not in shape to race, so I volunteered. I really like this race, though its gotten really big. It was hard to avoid getting jostled around and to dodge other runners for most of the course.

It was a nice morning for a race, though with a cold wind. I'm not sure of the temperature, probably low 40s at least. The day started early with pancakes and getting Allie ready to go watch her first race. I was annoyed that the city of Madison made the parking ramp near the race start a "special event" rate, which meant it was $4 to be paid on entry and cash only. I don't know many runners who bring cash to races, myself included. Luckily we found a meter really close by, so we parked for free since meters aren't enforced on Sundays.

I was nervous going into the race because I didn't have a strategy. For the half marathon I'm training on run/walk intervals, 3 minutes running to 2 minutes walking right now, and hoping to increase my running time. I ultimately decided 5K is short enough that I could just plan on running with walk breaks as needed. It worked well and I only walked the three (yes three!) hills and the water stop.

This race felt different from the start. I used to always start races too fast, especially 5Ks. But in this one, even though my garmin said I was starting at an 11-minute pace (which is very fast for me right now), I felt really comfortable.

Anyway, as I was lining up I felt the emotion of coming back to an old friend or a familiar place. I felt this way when I ran crazylegs last year and when I went back to band. Its like even though my life is so different now, I am returning to the way it was.

So the race analysis... I ran about a half mile before I felt I needed a break, and that just happened to be the first hill. Observatory Hill on the UW campus is a somewhat infamous part of a few race routes. Its steep. I didn't mind walking it. After walking up the hill I started running and was able to continue for probably a full mile. They changed the course this year so the 5K separated and we ran a separate loop before rejoining the original course to run back. I liked this because the original course had four hills (Observatory Hill is actually two back-to-back hills).

Anyway... after the first hill I felt "comfortably uncomfortable," a term I first heard from an old spin instructor. Its a feeling like you're challenging yourself, but you could do it for awhile. I gained back some of the time I lost walking up the first hill. When I started feeling a little less comfortable I started looking for the water station with the goal of running until I got there. Most 5K water stops are around the halfway point, but this one wasn't until mile 2! That made it kind of rough but I persevered through it.

Immediately after the water station were the two remaining hills. So I wasn't quite as fast (relatively speaking, of course) as I had been. When I was on the third mile I had to decide how I wanted to finish... if I wanted to take another short walk break to finish fast or just keep running. I decided to keep running and felt great. I got a bit faster as I approached the finish line and sprinted even more once I rounded the last corner and saw Doug and Allie.

It was awesome to have Doug and Allie there cheering me on. I'd have to say that was the best part of this race.

Afterward we had to head home right away because Allie was hungry, and therefore fussy. I wanted to take a family picture at the finish, but it was not to be that day! So this will suffice:

My final time was 38:27, so I was a few seconds (seven, to be exact) faster than my slowest 5K! Thats quite an accomplishment for me considering my average time to run 3 miles is 40 minutes. I now feel I'm fully on my way to the half marathon May 30. I'm starting to feel really confident in my training and its been a long time since I felt like that.