Shamrock Run

Yesterday, I ran the Shamrock 15k for the second time.  It is a challenging course that starts downtown on the Waterfront and heads north to the Burnside bridge.  After running halfway across the bridge, the course does a turn around sending runners back up Burnside.  After turning left at Broadway, the course continues on a slight uphill through the Portland State campus.  After running through campus, the course crosses I-405, turns right and then left to head up Terwilliger.  This is where it gets steep as Terwilliger heads up to OHSU...  then there's a slight reprieve before heading uphill again to the Chart House.  From there, there are a couple more downhill, uphill combos and then the course turns left again to head down the sweet, sweet downhill of Barbur all the way back downtown to the finish line. 

Although it is technically a 15k or 9.3 mile race, it only feels like you're running 5.75 miles because everything past that is a nice, steady, gentle downhill where you can really put it in cruise control and still log some fast miles.  Last year, I averaged 10:21 pace because I was gearing up for Eugene and had run an 18 miler on Friday night.  This year, I'd done a 14 miler on Friday morning but I still knew I'd shatter last year's pace... and I was right.  I clocked in with a 9:46 pace this year. 

Here are my splits according to the good old Garmin:
Mile 1 - 9:49
Mile 2 - 10:12
Mile 3 - 10:13
Mile 4 - 10:05
Mile 5 - 9:59
Mile 6 - 9:13
Mile 7 - 10:02
Mile 8 - 8:37
Mile 9 - 8:34
Mile 9.5 - 6:58 pace

So, according to my Garmin, I actually hit a 9:30 pace.  I'm not sure how the official timing and my Garmin could be off by :16 per mile but who cares.  I'm happy with my time especially considering that I'm only three weeks off of Austin and not feeling quite 100% recovered yet.