Shamrock'N Review

I've put off writing about this race because long story short, it was tough! I thought I had trained well, and did PR (by a little bit) but the bottom line is that I did not race my race, at my pace and suffered dearly at the end for this. The first few miles were fun, although in retrospect I think I went too fast. The course was also nice at the beginning because it was long loops taking us through downtown and Old Sacramento, but towards the end things got horrific because the course loops back and forth and zigs and zags and it's just a mess!

Things I saw during this race :
- An anemic band playing PINK FLOYD of all bands at like, mile 8 - seriously guys? Way to keep us asleep!
- At one point in Old Sac I was running in one direction and runners were running towards us, I saw a girl wearing headphones completely ignore her friend who was basically yelling to her "hey! hey hey!" Sometimes, headphones suck.
- Running a half through portions of my town was weird., but very cool!
-A lot of the rock and roll bands were having fun improvising running related lyrics, none played Chariots of Fire though.

I learned again though, every race is a chance to learn something and I came away from this determined to listen to my plan and follow through with it. I know I can shave more off of my time if I start out slow and then slowly crank it up. That's me, I know everyone is different. This race was fun but as far as spectactors go, the stadium seating actually makes it TOUGHER to find loved ones in the crowd. I wish they'd let everyone down on the field . Will I do this race again? I'm not sure - I'm still in pursuit of a good half, my favorite so far was the Cowtown (soon to be renamed "Urban Cow") it's a great course, good support and I ended that one far stronger than the American River Parkway Half or this one.
Thanks for reading!