Race Weekend Highlights

This is the 4th year that my family has gone to Virginia Beach for the Shamrock races, so it has started to become somewhat of a tradition. In 2007, I ran in the 1/2 marathon. In 2008 and 2009 two other families joined us and the guys ran in the 8k.

This year, the three families returned. Danny, Todd and Corrie (her first!) ran in the 8k (5 miles). Amy and I ran in the half-marathon (13.1 miles). It was Amy's first! Here were some observations:

• Going to Olive Garden on Friday is definitely a tradition that I don't want to give up. I love going to OG, but going with a group of friends is awesome! It's also guilt-free - knowing that you can eat a lot and burn it off running in the race!
• Love staying on the ocean front where you can hear the ocean in your room and see the sunrise over the water.
• Reminded that I'm glad we don't live in an apartment. Loud neighbors at 3am would get old.
• It was fun watching Todd, Corrie and Danny run on Saturday. I hadn't watched many races since I'm usually in them - it was fun trying to find them in the crowd. It was also fun watching those that won the race - they basically sprinted the whole race.
• Saw the craziest thing - after the 8k, runners were stretching out so they wouldn't get stiff. One of the runners - a guy really in shape - was stretching while smoking a cigarette! No one was with him, so that meant that he carried his cigarettes with him for 5 miles. Crazy!
• Our race began Sunday morning at 7am. We left the hotel at 6:30 t0 walk to the start line. It was weird to be walking while it was still dark with thousands of others.
• Along the race course was several were water & Gatorade stops. There was even one place where people were handing out beer to runners.
• It was fun to hear folks yell out your name and cheer you on. (my name was on race # that I wore).
• After finishing the race, it is quite satisfying for the next few minutes to soak in the knowledge that 1). the run is over 2). I finished it 3). it's time to relax.

After showering and checking out of the hotel, Amy and I went back over the the festivities at the finish line. We got some Irish Stew, sat on the beach, and watched the marathoners finish. We were feeling pretty good about ourselves until we realized that those that were finishing running now had run twice as far as we did. Wow. What we had done was real tough - I can't imagine a marathon.

Who knows . . . maybe some day.