4:15 am: Alarm wakes me up, hit snooze. Five minutes later 2nd alarm goes off and I remember why my alarms going off soooo damn early, I've gotta race this morning that I have to be at, so I check my weather app on my phone to see what type of mess I'll be working in this morning. Weather app says, 60 with wind and rain. WTF, that's not what I had in mind for race morning. I get up to make my usual morning black coffee, no sugar and let my dogs out the back door. I notice, there's no rain just yet, but for sure it's gonna be windy. Grab all my gear, phone, bag, laptop, extra clothes, hat and coffee to go. I am on a mission to be the first to arrive at the office. I have to beat Javier, the early to rise Split Second crew member that's been "Employee of the Year" 2 years running! So, I get over to McAllister Park at 5:25 am and I most definitely am the first to arrive, the park is extremely dark and creepy. I realized next time, I don't want to be the first to arrive anywhere that early, I had to wait around for about 5 minutes or so for the next person to show up. That's 5 minutes too long in my book. Thankfully, I wasn't there too long by myself. Javier showed up and all was well. Soon after, Mitch finally decides to show up but without ICE, and what are we gonna do without ICE? We have cases of Shiner Beer for our runners that deserve a nice cold beer after they race. Not to mention, just as Mitch arrives the rain comes, that's when my mouth becomes uncontrollable and spewing out every unlady like word I know. I'll let you take a guess at what I said.
6:00am: the rest of our crew shows up and the day begins. My volunteer coordinator, race timers and set up crew get started before the sun rises. We set up the water stops, arch and race day registration. Soon after our volunteers start to trickle in, although not quite awake, they wait for their assignments....thank you to the crew from Any Body Can, awesome volunteers that are ready to help whenever and wherever. Check out the chicken, can you guess who that might be from Any Body Can?
We had a great turnout in the morning with everyone that came out to race and last minute registration, which ended up being more than expected. Let me just say one thing about registering at the last minute.....when you don't register early, it makes it extremely difficult to plan for things like t-shirts and food, Portolets, etc. One of the most frustrating details when planning a race is determining how many t-shirts to order. We pull our hair out every time! Anyways, just thought I'd vent a little. Moving on, I couldn't ask for better sponsors that participated and provided resources like bagels, bread, massages, physical therapy assistance and more, you make our events fun and unique. With that being said, I have to give mad props to San Antonio Center for Physical Therapy, Camp Gladiator, Hill Country Spine and Sport, Bagel Factory, Great Harvest Bread Company, Shiner Beers, Saucony and Ozarka.8:00am: Precisely at 8:00am, the 1K takes off and I was no where in sight. Some last minute registration issues arise and I didn't even realize what time it was. No pictures of the 1K kiddos in their St. Paddy's green, sorry. As the morning goes on runners start lining up, our lovely Carol Healey sings the national anthem and some last minute announcements begin. I'm so glad we hired Mark Purnell to announce at our events, if not we'd have to listen to Mitch sing and tell bad jokes. I don't think I can handle that all morning.
8:30 am: The race starts, right on time. Runners are off, everyone looks happy, our crew looks surprisingly calm. I think this is the first time everything happened according to plan. This makes me start to panic, what are we missing, what did we forget? As soon as all the runners cross that start line, a huge weight is lifted off my shoulders and I can breath a little bit. I have to say though, I do miss being on the other side, when I was just a runner. Now, I have to worry about everybody else finishing safely, getting lost, D-tags not working, etc. So many things that could possibly go wrong. Luckily, all went well and I remember why I love my job. I love seeing the nervousness at the start line, the over the top creative costumes people run in, the families that get up early and run together and the excitement of finishing a race for the first time or the 100th time. The running community is a small and unique group of individuals of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities. Some compete against themselves and others compete to win. Regardless of the reason, runners are great supporters of one another and I love being a part of this sport. Great job everyone that ran the Shamrock Shuffle. Hope you all enjoyed the course and had a good time. Thank you to our sponsors, volunteers, iRun staff, Split Second Crew and the iRun Team. 
iRunning Mama
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