Shamrock'ed It! Portland Shamrock Run 2014

Getting Greener by the Year! We ran in previous year Shamrock Run shirts, glasses from the dollar store and most importantly "Green Tornado" Fast 'n Flirty™ Skirts

For the 4th year in a row, Stephanie and I (Samara) ran the Portland Shamrock Run. Each year, we seem to take our costumes a bit more serious (or less serious, I suppose) and end up getting noticeably greener! This was the second year we ran with Kristina, one of our stay-at-home moms that works as a seamstress for us. She recently started running over the last couple of years, has lost over 50 pounds and is quite the inspiration! We held an inaugural Kristina 8K Run last year to celebrate women and their fitness journeys. Stay tuned for details about the Vancouver 2014 Kristina 8K (yes, you get a skirt and shirt outfit with signup!)

Halfway through the run!

All done! Kristina beat her time by several minutes.

We had a blast. At the end of the run, we started talking about previous Shamrock Runs. Stephanie and I had to chuckle at one memory that stood out. That particular race, we had a busy day planned with the early morning run and then a benefit brunch right afterwards for Doernbecher's Hospital. We were donating a Sweet Spot® Skirt for the silent auction and were excited to support such a great organization. Before the run while scouring for parking (over 50,000 people participate in the race), we saw an empty lot right near the starting line. "How lucky are we?" we kept remarking, as we congratulated ourselves on finding a hidden gem of parking. We would do the run, hop into our car, head home and shower/change to be at the benefit brunch right on time. Post-run happy, we get back to the car only to find...all of the surrounding streets are blocked off for the other various Shamrock Run distances to finish running. Apparently we were parked on the route and found out that the roads wouldn't be open for another couple of hours. Thinking there was no way we could make it to the event on time, we switched into Sweet Spot® Skirt problem solving mode. Headed to a local coffee shop, we called in a favor of Stephanie's friend who swung by and dropped us off straight at the benefit. Never mind that everyone else was dressed in Sunday morning attire. We had grabbed extra shoes and hats from the car to change, so proceeded to flip our "Lucky" shamrock reversible skirts to the opposite subtle black side, throw on boots and instantly looked presentable. Thank goodness for the versatility of Sweet Spot® Skirts and a casual hat to cover up our running hair! No one could tell that we had just ran 6 miles in the rain.

Stephanie and I still joke about that seemingly perfect parking lot, but for some reason have decided to park farther away in more populated areas for the proceeding Shamrock Runs!