The Shamrock Run Portland Half Marathon took place the day after St. Patrick’s day in downtown Portland. This is a pretty big Portland race event and in addition to the half marathon, the 5k, 8k and 15k distances are offered. For those that don’t want to run, there is the Shamrock Stride which is a 4-mile fitness walk. For kids 10 and under there’s the Blazers Leprechaun Lap, a 1km (0.6-mile) run. It’s a fun event for all!

I decided to carpool with fellow Mom’s Run This Town members. We left early and got downtown around 7:30 am. It was great to carpool and I didn’t mind getting there early.Love our Simple Hydration bottles 🙂 and had to take a pic! The half marathon had a late starting time, scheduled to begin at 9:20 am. Out of the group, I was the only one doing the half so I hung out at Starbucks for a little while until it got closer too race time…probably should have ventured out sooner since after I put my stuff in gear check, ran my 10 min warm up and decided to go to the bathroom again, it was race time. I didn’t cross the start line until almost two minutes after the race began. There were a lot of people…so many that it was slow going and had to weave in and out. I dislike it when they don’t have corrals or stagger runners at the start line. But it was a great day for a race with temps in the low 40s. I remember the last time I ran this race it was pouring rain. We ran along Naito Parkway to Front Ave for an out and back and then it followed the 15k route.I was feeling pretty good and knew it was a tough course with hills but there’s always the hope of getting a PR.This was a different course from when I ran it last time and it went the opposite way to the Terwilliger hills. Boy was it tough.So hilly and that steep part around 7.3 miles ughhh.My hopes of a PR diminished while going uphill but I just did my best and pushed on. Loved seeing entertainment along the way. Here are some bagpipers.

It was so nice going downhill.I met these guys who thought I was taking selfies, which I wasn’t and told them I was taking the scenery. So I told them I can take a selfie with you guys and they did 🙂 .Going downhill was great, but around mile 10.3, there was a slight gradual incline until mile 11.3. After the hills and then downhill it was a bit rough. But after that it was downhill to the finish. I pushed on and finished with a great time.Here’s one of the finish line pics. I pre ordered pics for $15, which I thought was a good deal for all the digital pics from the race. Here are more:

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I saw the ladies at the finish line.Besides the normal water, nuun was handing out samples of their tablets. There was soup, I think it was a minestrone, I can’t remember. Took a pic with the gals at the iHeart radio booth. There were a lot of other booths and free beer with our bib ticket but I wanted to get my cool down done so the ladies didn’t have to wait since we carpooled. Here’s the cool medal.

As far as fueling for the race, I had two scoops of UCAN about half an hour before the race and used nuun for hydration.My race results. I’m pretty happy with my time especially since it was a hilly course. It wasn’t that much off from my PR. I had fun and that’s what counts right? Thanks to my run coach, Dawn, who’s helped me get stronger as a runner. Also, big thanks to my fam, who’s supported my running! 🙂

I’m looking forward to my next race, the Vernonia Marathon. 10 days left now since I got to writing this recap late…

Happy running.

What’s your next race?