Long Overdue Race Report: Shamrock Shuffle

I've been busy (not lazy, busy. Really. Ok, a little lazy.) so I'm late in posting my report from my first race of 2010: Chicago's Shamrock Shuffle, an 8k. I've noticed that Suzanne has posted twice in the last week and I haven't posted once so I'd better get moving. Continuing with my lazy (or let's call it efficient) theme, I'm going to give a recap by random bullets:

• Took the Friday afternoon off before the Race to go to the Expo. I love, love, love me an Expo. I know a lot of people think it's a pain to pick up the packet at the Expo but I love it. Maybe I feel more like a true runner, I don't know. The race shirts, the vendors, the yogurt samples, I love it all.
• The weather forecast was not good so I was a little nervous the days leading up to the race. Chicago weather gods like to do that . . .heavenly Spring weather in the beginning of the week, cold, blustery, raining weather predicted in time for the race.
• Day of the race was cold, but not nearly as bad as predicted. Mike, my sister-in-law Nancie and friends Marina and Jon were all doing the race so I was really looking forward to it. A bonus, Mike and I met our longtime blog friend Jared for the first time in "real life."
• I broke a cardinal rule by dressing for the start and not dressing for the run. I was enjoying chatting with our friends as we waited for the start and wasn't really cold at all. One mile into it I was cursing myself for dressing too warm.
• The Shuffle is huge, I think 30,000 plus runners so on the plus side you have a lot of excitement and energy; on the down side you have to wait 30 minutes to cross the start (at least if you are a back-of-the-pack runner like me.)
• Going into the race, I wasn't worried about the mileage (5 miles) as I have been running fairly consistently. I was worried about the fact that this was going to be my first time running outside since October. I know, I know. What was I thinking? Problem was that between the weather and working in runs around work and the kids etc it was either too dark or too cold to run outside. So I paid for it. Ouch.
• Hills, hills, hills! Ok Suzanne would laugh as she prepares to run in San Francisco of all places. So maybe they were more like small inclines. When you live and run in flat Chicago though, any incline is a hill and there were quite a few more than we are used to on this course due to construction/course change.
• Bottom line: Fun race, painfully slow time (but expected). And, my sister-in-law beat Mike in her first organized race. That should make the next family get-together interesting :)

This week's running schedule: 4, 2, 4.5, 7 (I'm going to do the 7 miler on Easter morning as an excuse to eat more at Easter brunch :) )

Short post I know, but I'm distracted now because I just learned via text that Suzanne does not watch Lost anymore. What?! When did this happen? When we worked together we had two fish in my office named Sayid and Locke. How soon she forgets. Sigh.