in 7 weeks is this year's shamrock run in downtown portland. it was the last thing I did in portland before getting on a plane that same day last year to start work in Los Angeles.

I do the 8k/5 mile run and my time is consistently 10 minutes per mile. I've got an earlier start this year and maybe I can really improve on that time this year. I have some nice shoes that I bought for last year's shamrock run and I practice by doing loops around 2 blocks which is almost exactly a mile per loop.

I'm not thrilled about running on pavement. Its certainly hard on the joints. If I had a trail around here to run on, I'd do a different race. But its the time of year where I think about running and race day itself is always very memorable.