Running and then blogging about it
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Shamrock Run 2012

By Colleen @colleenalicia · On March 20, 2012

Portland’s Shamrock Run is a fantastic run, if you like events with tens of thousands of people where everyone is wearing the same color.  Unfortunately, it’s not so great that I can actually remember to sign up for it ahead of time.  Last year I was saved by the donation of a free entry from someone who had an extra, but this year I had no such luck.  I could have bandit run the race, but that’s very naughty and you should never do that.  Besides, I had something else to do during the race.  For the first time in a very long time, I went to cheer somebody else on, instead of demanding that other people come to do it for me.  This had nothing to do with the fact that I haven’t run for six weeks, and everything to do with my love for following fast runners around and hunting for celebrities.

Remember last year, when I got to have my picture taken with the first place winner of the 5k?  Here is a reminder:

I was so impressed by his fast running, that I decided to come watch and see if he could do it again this year.  The 5k didn’t start until 9:20 this year, so it wasn’t too hard to get up in time to get downtown and watch the race.  The entire Shamrock Run event had over 30,000 people in it, so the race was delayed by 5 minutes, but that’s not too bad for such a big race.  The 5k alone had over 11,000 people in it.  Only a lucky few get to be in front – it takes a lot of luck to think up the genius idea of getting in the front instead of behind thousands of people with no pace groups whatsoever.  Here’s a picture of those smarty pants:

I only got one picture of last year’s winner.  He was in the front group, except for some guy who sprinted out thirty feet in front of everyone and then dropped way back not to much later.

 
 After taking that picture, I waited eight minutes before I decided to make my way to the finish line, which was several blocks south of the start.  As I passed the start line, there were still tons of people slowly moving forward, as they hadn’t even begun the race yet.  It took at least 20 minutes for everyone just to start.  I finally made it through the crowds and to the finish line about 14 minutes into the race.  At about 14:30, the race announcer started directing the 8k runners to move to the left, since they shared the same finishing chute as the 5k runners, who were about to start coming in.  This was pretty ineffective, but they moved a little.  At 15:15, the rabbit showed up (a policeman in a motorcycle in this case), and the 8k runners were urged even more to get to the left.  It turns out this wasn’t very helpful, as the last turn was a left one, and anyone trying to run as fast as possible and win a race would want to make the sharpest turn possible.  So our defending champion, neck-and-neck with one other runner in front, got bumped behind a slow-moving lady right as he was trying to finish a very fast-moving race.  The end to this story is happy though.  As he came out of the turn, now several feet behind the competition, he kicked in hard, gradually closing the gap until the very end, where he won with a photo-finish.  Plus the few extra seconds he already had on him by starting behind him at the start line.  Here’s the amazing picture I got of him coming into the final sprint.  He’s almost perfectly hidden behind the other guy in this picture, but he was there, I promise.

After the race, there was a lot of wandering around eating chowder and wondering if he had won or not.  It was probably at least an hour later before I went to the results-calculating-people and asked them who won.  The conversation went like this:

“Do you have the results for the 5k yet?”
“No it’ll be at least 15 to 20 minutes.  There were a lot of people.”
“Yeah…” I almost turned around before I thought to ask, “Do you at least know who the top finishers were?”
“Yeah pretty much…”
“I’m just trying to figure out what place this guy got.”
“Oh yeah. He won.”

Then I got excited and tried to ask them by how much, but they were extremely uninterested in doing anything but staring at their computers.  So we decided to go see if we could him his prizes (his weight in beer!).  But we had no idea where to get them, all we could figure out is that they would not be doing the awards ceremony with the beer teeter-totter this year.  Instead we watched some guy win his weight in beer by just getting his number pulled out of a hat, and not for running the fastest.  This was sad to watch, since they weren’t letting the winners teeter-totter this year, and last year they screwed up the race results and took a long time to figure them out, so our winner didn’t get to teeter-totter then either.  This is what the teeter-totter looks like when you get to do it:

 
Having no idea how to get the prizes, we finally started to leave the waterfront without them (I was still following him around at this point, and he didn’t complain too much).  It seemed wise to check for them just one last time though, so we walked all the way back to the stage and eventually found a little tent around the corner, where the prizes were being given out.  Apparently he was supposed to get a little slip of paper that instructed him where to get his prizes, as he crossed the finish line.  This never happened.  The Shamrock Run is generally awesome, but it seemed weird that the winner of the race could almost walk away empty-handed, not even knowing whether or not he had won.  Of course races aren’t obligated to give away prizes, but generally the people who win these races trained really hard to do so.  Should they really have to work that much extra just to find out if they can have the prize?  Maybe when such a small percentage of the runners are actually winning anything, they’re not the main concern of the event.  Oh well.  We spent our time of confusion well.  The Number One Champion used his good looks and cleverness to acquire a 15k Commemorative Bottle-Opener Style Finisher’s Medallion, for at least long enough to get a picture to display for my readers:
 
I also got another picture to go with last year’s winner picture:

Obviously getting to hang out with the winner of the Shamrock Run 5k was a super big deal, but sadly for him, it was overshadowed by the encounter of an even bigger celebrity: Patrick Farrari from Biggest Loser season 12!  I only embarrassed myself a little by not remembering his name, but I did get to tell him that the Biggest Loser is my favorite show.  Now I wish that I had made up a story about how I comfort-fed myself after Seinfeld was cancelled, until I was 300 pounds, and that his episodes of Biggest Loser were the sole motivators in finally losing the weight, rejoining society, and generally thriving in life.  But I was not thinking on my toes, and only asked for a picture.

The worst part of this Shamrock Run was that I couldn’t find the hilarious Irish Setters in their little leprechaun hats.  Did they not come this year?  It’s a good thing I have my own hilarious dog to come home to.  Here’s a really long video of him playing with his new froggy toy:

ChampionShamrock RunThe Biggest Loser
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Colleen

I must confess, I started running at a very early age. Sadly, my runs were unblogumented until around age 23, so you'll have to use your imagination for all the runs I went on before that. Running has always been my go-to sport, but sadly, I spend a good amount of my time with chronic injuries. I have learned to entertain myself athletically with other pursuits such as kettlebell, yoga, and bikini competitions, when I can't run. In addition to my unique talent for working out and then blogging about it, I am an amateur puppy stylist and photographer, television enthusiast, and I'm usually CPR/AED certified, but I would still prefer if you didn't pass out when we're together.

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About Me

I’m Colleen. I started this blog when I was 23 years old and training for my first marathon. I was single, semi-employed, generally directionless in life, and had a lot of free time on my hands. I have a lot less free time now, but I still love to come here and dump my rambling, unedited thoughts after a workout or race once in a while.

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