03/20/11: Shake Your Shamrock Part 2

And now for part 2 - the 13K edition. You can read about my 7K leg here. :-)

I woke up this morning to chirping birds, and just laid there for a while to listen. I've always appreciate the arrival of spring weather....but nothing like this year! (48 degrees F) I knew I'd be able to get my long run in this week....with 17 less pounds of gear on my body. No gloves, hat, two-three shirts, running tights, long underwear, jacket, etc, etc, etc.....


Here I am in my required green for the shamrock (part 2) run.

I've now officially exhausted the extent of my green clothing. And I only rec'd this shirt last week at the St. Louis St Patty's Parade Run. :-)

You also get to see what I'm fondly calling my Go Go Gadget belt. Hydration bottles on back...pocket up front for gels, beans, phone, and other misc crap I think I might need to carry. I also have pepper spray attached to it somewhere.

It's not as cool as Batman's utility belt...but give me time! I'll have a stun gun, repelling equipment and parachute soon. :-)

So anyway, I ran the 7K (plus) on Friday, and today was my day to take a stab at the 13K.

After looking up online to see exactly how far 13K is (8.08 miles - hehehehe), I realized I just so happened to have an 8 mile run on my schedule for the day.....perfect!!!!!!

I drove to one of the city's trails and headed off.



I could have labeled this post "The Birds and the Bee's" after all the wildlife I was seeing along the way.

Well.....maybe just "The Birds."


a turkey walking along the path, near the beginning of the trail


a couple of Canadian geese honked at me as I passed......honked, and honked, and honked


a male Mallard duck and his girlfriend

I also saw a blue jay, a cardinal, and far too many crows to count.

As I was driving to the trail, small droplets of rain were falling on the windshield...but by the time I'd started running, the skies let up.

At the halfway point (4.04 miles) I turned around to head back to the car. I also decided that today was the day I'd try out some gels I'd won from a virtual race in January. Adam @ I Am Boring hosted Freeze Your Thorns Off 5K Virtual Race and I won a case of these babies!

(Sorry it's taken me so long to get around to mentioning them Adam,...but I didn't want to until I was able to try them out!)



I'm new to the "gel" thing....and thought today was finally a long enough run to give them a shot.

They didn't taste nearly as disgusting as I was afraid they would. I hear horror stories about people only using them because they work, but the taste is awful. While you won't find me dining on them on a regular non-running basis, I have to say, they weren't bad at all!!!

And, about a mile later I think I could actually feel them starting to kick in. In fact, take a look at my splits for the second half of the run.....

Mile 5: 11:36
Mile 6: 11:14
Mile 7: 10:55
Mile 8: 10:16
Mile 8+: 8:54

I ended the 8.08 miles with an 11:00 min/mile average. I'll take it. :-)

So again.....thank you to Linzi @ Beyond Destination 26.2 and Aneta @ My Running Bucket to hosting the Shake your Shamrock racing series!!!! If you haven't checked out their blogs...you really should!!!! :-)