This past weekend, I ran my 8th Shamrock Shuffle. Hard to believe I've had such a long history with this race. It really is one of the best races in Chicago. If you haven't run it before, I highly recommend you do so at least once!
The expo is always the Friday and Saturday before the race. This year I was asked to volunteer at the
Zooma booth and I was able to coordinate with
Amanda @ Get to Goal to volunteer with me.
Oh yeah, side note. Patsy joined us at the expo as well! She enticed some people to our booth and she was a very well behaved little girl the whole time. She made some new friends at the expo too!
We visited
Maggie at the ACS booth and Patsy really wanted to be held by the leprechaun. He didn't mind at all which was pretty great.
Fellow Oiselle ambassador,
Kim Pearlman, met up at the expo as well to exchange our team bibs. Patsy enjoyed hanging out with a fellow Wee Bird.
When it came time for the race morning, it was a little chilly to start but temps warmed up later on. In true new mom fashion, Patsy was a little under dressed for the temps. Thankfully, my SILs came downtown to watch Patsy while I ran and they improvised by bundling her up nicely.
I haven't been able to run as much as I would have liked in recent weeks/months, so I decided to just have fun with the race. My BRF Maggie was in a similar predicament and we decided to run together. Since Maggie is now a city dweller, we don't get to run together as often, but with how much fun we had at the shuffle, I'm hoping that changes in the future.
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Photo in the starting corrals |
We started in the back of B which was a great decision. It wasn't too crowded. People weren't speeding past us. The course changed slightly this year but it was still extremely smooth. This race is always so well executed. The water and gatorade stops were well marked and predictable. The volunteers were organized and had things ready to go.
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But first.... Let me take a selfie. |
My biggest criticism with the race this year was that there was no music. There is usually boom boxes jamming Black Eyed Peas or a very trendy jam. They had 1 person yelling/talking over some beats at one of the water stops, but that was about it. Um, that isn't music. I know the Lululemon people are usually out there but I didn't even hear them... Maybe because we were in corral B, things were really pumped up later? Either way, it was kind of disappointing. Thankfully Maggie and I made the most of it. I just turned on my itunes music OUT LOUD and we danced our way along the course.
We finished the race in 47:10 (9:26 pace) which actually was a semi-progressive run. We started off slower and picked it up with each mile. I was kind of expecting a 50:00 (10:00 pace) so this was a welcome change. I didn't run with my Garmin so I wasn't too concerned about pace. Thanks for the fun run Maggie! Let's do it again soon!
After the race, I shuffled over to the Congress hotel to meet up with fellow Oiselle ambassadors that were also in town for the race. I always love meeting other ambassadors!
Next up: BRUNCH. Obviously this was what I was looking forward to the most. :) I took my SILs out as a thank you for watching the baby while I raced. We ended up at
11 City Diner and the food was phenomenal. Also, the place was very family friendly so that was a definite plus. I highly recommend going there after a race sometime as it was walking distance from the finish line.
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My smiling happy girl! |
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EAT ALL THE FOODS |
I completely forgot to get a picture of all me with my SILs during the day. I'll have to remember that for next time!
All in all, another fantastic Shamrock Shuffle race is in the books and I'm very excited for the upcoming year in racing!