Shamrock 5K Race Report

Today's race was a great way to spend my St. Patrick's Day weekend (since I'll be at stinking work tomorrow). But, I have to say that it was not all that great of a race from a purely running standpoint.

The race was scheduled to begin at 1:15 at the corner of N. Charles St. and Franklin St, which as luck would have it is about three blocks from my apartment. So I didn't even leave my apartment until about 12:45 to give myself plenty of time to get down there and mill around a bit to get the lay of the land. It was a blustery day, but nothing terrible in the grand scheme of crappy Baltimore weather. About 45 with winds around 15 mph. The sun was in and out of the clouds, so that made it feel a little cooler than it really was, but overall a decent day for a race.

As I was relaxing before the race, I could see tons of people in their green Brooks technical shirts walking up Charles St. towards the starting area. I had heard that 4,000 people had registered for the race, but I had no idea just how big 4,000 really is. Anyway, I got to the starting point and just kinda stood around waiting for the gun to go off. The brochure said that we'd get splits at 1 and 2 miles and for some reason I equated that with not needing to take my Garmin or a watch along. I don't know why, but sometimes I make no sense. At any rate, my Garmin has trouble finding satellites in downtown Baltimore due to the tall buildings so I would probably have just taken a watch. But no, I didn't do that and then got there and realized that with 3,998 people in front of me, I'd be crossing the starting line way later than the clock's starting time. Which would throw off the splits I'd get along the way, which would mean I'd have no real idea what my time was. Awesome. A masters from the London School of Economics and this is the result.

The gun went off at what I presume was a time close to 1:15 but it took me about 4-5 minutes (I had to count the minutes in my head as I waited) before I crossed the starting line. Even then, with 4,000 people (OK, the end number was about 3300) running, the street was really crowded and I wasn't able to run much faster than a nice jog. I had to dart in and out of traffic and around people and dodge people who were walking in the middle of the road, etc. That was pretty much the theme of the race: jog & dodge. And yes, I know that's what I should expect at such a large race but seriously, when there are people who lined up near the front and they're walking after a quarter mile, it's really frustrating. There were lots of people running who had no business trying to run 3.1 miles. I mean, I'm no Olympic runner or anything, but walking 2.75 of the 3.1 miles really isn't worth the $30 entry fee to me. Plus you'd have someone running and then they'd just STOP in the middle of the road. I nearly ran over some lady that way and I saw it happen once or twice to others. People would also be walking and would weave from side to side, making it a nice little guessing game for anyone wanting to pass them. That slowed me down as well because several times I'd nearly run into someone and jump to my left, only to get stuck behind three runners jogging along at their own pace and creating a traffic jam. It's a theory of mine that people walk/run/jog in much the same way as they drive. People who drive as if the road was specifically built for them and their Dodge Caravan usually run a race with that same mentality. One woman and her friends were jogging in a line and she was on her cell phone talking to other people to ensure they had beer lined up after the race.

Now, I'm no running snob. I don't adhere to some people's uppity definition of running as being any pace under 8:00/mile. I think that's crap and that if you're out running at 10:30 or 12:00 per mile you're just as ballsy (more so, I think) than if you're running 5:00. Running really fast in front of people is easy because it looks awesome and fun. Struggling to run in front of people is really hard because the risk of looking foolish or failing seems to be higher. If you take yourself so seriously that you take pleasure in separating yourself from other people by making light of their accomplishments because they don't run as fast as you, then I encourage you to get the stick out of your ass and try to relax and enjoy life a little more for all our sakes. Races should be fun above all else because very few people are going to run a 4:45 mile just for the hell of it. And it's mainly my fault for signing up for such a large race in the first place and expecting it to be like the Run to Cooperstown back in July. But I think that there needs to be some acknowledgement that there are certain unspoken rules of running in a crowd that should be followed by everyone, regardless of ability or speed. Just some common sense rules that will make everyone's race better in the long run.

At any rate, it was a decent race on a course I run almost every time I lace up my shoes so I knew exactly where it was hilly and where it was flat, etc. Had I had more space to run, that knowledge would have been more helpful.

Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of this race, however, were the results posting. They're posted on Charm City Run's website. However, they're posted according to everyone's Gun Time, which for many people is much different from their chip time. For example, my Gun Time was 31:12, but my Chip Time was 27:49. However the five runners who had a Gun Time of 31:11 had Chip Times of 29:57, 30:39, 29:02, 29:02, and 29:02, respectively. That's absurd. Similarly, there's no way to take the results from the website and transpose them into Excel so you can find out how you really did. So, without doing some painstaking work, I have no idea how I really compared over those 3.1 miles to the other 3319 runners. I know that I'm under ranked by at least 21 spots, as the 21 runners who had faster Gun Times than me all had slower Chip Times. So while it says I finished 1680/3319 and 319/442 in my age group, I have to believe those numbers are wrong. I may e-mail Charm City Run and ask them if they have the results in Excel format so I can find out how I really did. Still, it's really annoying that they didn't organize the results by Chip Times. Why even have Chip Times in the first place if they're not going to be used as the real measurement of all the runners' performances? It makes no sense.

So, in summary, 4,000 people running 3.1 miles is probably too many for someone looking to PR or to at least test their endurance after winter training. Certainly it's not the right race if you're looking to get an accurate appraisal of how you did compared to the other runners in the field. I am going to reserve judgement on whether to run this race next year or not. At this point, I'd have to say No, but I like the cool green shirt and looking down Charles St to see thousands of people running was a very cool sight. We'll see.