Shamrock Shuffle

So I finished. After two and a half months of grueling training, I was able to complete the 2006 Shamrock Shuffle. Ok, so my training mostly consisted of me walking to the McDonald's for a McGriddle or back to the bar for another beer, but that still counts doesn't it? Seriously though, I ran three to maybe four times prior to the race. That's training enough for me!

So at 4.96 miles, the Shamrock Shuffle is 1.46 miles longer than the furthest I've ever run in race conditions. The previous record holder? The Chase Corporate Challenge, which is 3.5 miles. I've done that a few times and run in other 5k races as well. I wasn't sure how fast I was going to be, but as long as I finished in under an hour I thought I'd be ok. In the end I finished in 53:14, six and three quarter minutes faster than my goal. Clare smoked me, coming in at 48:08.

10 minutes after the start we were finally walking up to the starting line (seriously, there were 25,000 people registered for this race, you didn't think we'd be up front did you?). I began to wonder, "how fast I could actually run this?" If completed in 42 minutes or less, you become eligible for the preferred start, which puts you ahead of the massive crowds. At that moment I wanted to come in at 41 minutes. Three steps into my run I wanted to go home.

That being said, I didn't stop other than at the water/gatorade stations, and that was just because it was littered with wet paper cups. Running down the middle of State Street without getting run over by a car or bus was pretty surreal. I'd say it was like Tom Cruise in Vanilla Sky, but there were a few hundred people around me and I'm not a crazy Scientologist.

Next up is the Corporate Challenge, where I hope to finish in 30 or fewer minutes. Let the training begin.