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Sunday, March 20, 2011

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!!!! :-)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congrats on Shaking your Shamrock again!! :) I loved reading your race reports!! :) WOooo hooo!!! :)

Fran said...

Great run Jen, two times in a row!

We have the same gel, I tried the power bar gels recently and I liked them so bought new ones.

I had the same as you before I tried my first one and I did also think they weren't as bad as expected. I feel them working within minutes after taking them and think they are great for the long runs.

You did great on your runs this weekend girl, am proud of you.

Faith Ann said...

Sounds like two great Shamrock runs!! Love the Go Go Gadget belt lol.

I don't think I have a single green running shirt in my closet (unbelievable).

Nej said...

@ Faith Ann - I'd just gotten the second one at the St Pat's race in St. Louis is the weekend before.....and I'd found the first green top at Goodwill earlier that month. They are the ONLY green things in my closet, period. :-)

Anonymous said...

hey! thnx for shakin in with us!
great job

The Boring Runner said...

Very cool!!! Glad you think they helped out. I'm with you though - I rarely use them on the shorter runs, so no worries at all about not posting until now!