Shamrock'n Half Marathon

After nearly three months of training and anticipation, today was finally the Shamrock'n Half Marathon. I set a goal of breaking 2 hours and was excited to see if I could complete that goal. Perhaps a bit too excited as I had trouble sleeping last night.

7500 participants were expected for the run, and the organizers recommended getting to Raley Field by 6:15 if you desired to park by the stadium. A bit early for my liking, but I got there just before the lines got really bad. I think they were still parking cars in the lot at 6:45, but I imagine those folks were sitting in traffic for quite a while.

The weather was a bit cool at 6:30 but when the sun rose around 7:00 it felt a lot better. I realized as took off my extra layers that I had made a poor decision in regards to shorts as the pair I chose had no pockets (I'm surprised that I bought such a pair). As such, I chose to leave my gel shots in the car, and secured my keys to the shorts drawstring. Fortunately, I don't think this caused me any issues although I could have used one of the gel shots.

I was assigned to the first wave which was set to start at 7:45. I lined up in the queue around 7:20 after finding the 2 hour pacer. The first wave consisted of anyone expecting to finish under 2 hours, and I was surprised so many runners were lined up behind us when there was quite a bit of room in front of the 2 hour group.

When the race started, I tried to keep an eye on the 2 hour pacer, but I got off to a quick start (as is my custom) and I quickly pulled away. The first few miles I frequently checked my watch and mentally told myself to slow down with limited success. Other than short bursts of music from the bands positioned around the course, I don't remember much from those miles. I averaged around 8:35 per mile for those first three miles, and once I realized that I was going to continue at that pace for a while, I calculated that if I ran the first 7 miles at 8:30-8:40 that if I did the final 6 at 9:30, I would hit my 2 hour target.

Once I made it through mile 7 keeping at my desired rate, I decided to try to keep under 8:40/mile but more reasonably only allowing each mile to be at most 10 seconds worst than the previous. The eighth mile was a bit rough towards that goal but I did finish it in 8:42. I bounced back for the ninth mile (my fastest of the run) with a 8:29. I slowed a bit for the tenth finishing in 8:35. I could feel myself faded after that and had to keep telling myself to speed up in the final three miles. I'm pleased to say that I finished those miles in only slightly slower times that my previous miles: 8:42, 8:43, and 8:43 respectively. I finished the race at a sprint (7:50/mile pace). As a nice touch, the race finished on the ball diamond of Raley Field.

I ran a total of 13.17 miles just slightly over the expected length. That was not as much as I did in the Four Bridges Half, so I was glad to see that I did a better job of not taking the corners too widely.

I ran a pretty consistent pace which was nice to see. My mile splits ranged from 8:29.1 (mile nine) to 8:43.9 (mile twelve). My first seven miles were within a narrower 8:33-8:36 range.

Here's the badge for my most recent personal record:

I enjoyed the Shamrock'n Half Marathon, and I think it's likely that I'll do this race again next year. This personal record will likely hold up for a bit as I'm not likely to run another half until October.