Shamrock Shuffle

Mile 1 -- 10:59
Mile 2 -- 11:37
Mile 3 -- 11:59
last .46 mi --5:10
elapsed time per Forerunner 205 --39:46

It was your basic everyday beer run.

We had no bib numbers, no chip timing, no course certification and no age-group awards. But today's Shamrock Shuffle did send home participants with Adidas tech tees, whose retail value easily made the cost of registration worth it.

I'll give the organizers credit for having the moxie to schedule this on the same gorgeous spring morning as the Bayou City Classic just a few miles away in downtown, although this race was catering to sleepyheads with a 10 a.m. start. The start and finish were in front of Brian O'Neill's Irish Pub on Morningside, and in between was a loop of the crushed gravel path on the perimeter of Rice University.

I'm still slow, and lacking in base mileage, so I did take a few short walk breaks. However I think that was the closest I've come to running an entire 5K+ in a long time. I think I'm still heading in the right direction.

Course management itself definitely could have been better. There were volunteers in the immediate area of the pub, but no one was there to direct participants at the turns at Main Street and at Sunset Boulevard. Since no one was wearing race bibs and the Rice U area is already populated with pedestrian traffic in various directions, it's quite possible for someone to have gotten lost. I'm making a mental note to myself to bring that to the organizers' attention.

Other random observations from today's run:

• We have some sidewalks in this city that could use some attention. A girl took a spill right in front of me after being tripped on a sidewalk crack. Luckily, she only tallied a badly skinned knee and was only a few hundred feet away from the finish and in reach of further assistance.
• Those Rice students have some kickin' perks. I actually saw a Rice University bus operating on Sunset Boulevard that was marked "Shopping Shuttle." I suppose kids that smart deserve better than METRO.
• Today's run was a benefit event for Houston's Ronald McDonald House. After hearing months of puppy hype as a volunteer around the House, I finally got to meet the resident labradoodle, Mogie.
  
• I hereby award the Shamrock Shuffle bonus points for somehow managing to stock the porta-potties with shamrock-themed toilet paper. Now that made my visit to "the loo" very, very special.