Last week I took a trip down to Virgina Beach to run the 2010 Shamrock Marathon sponsored by Yuengling.  It was my 8th marathon.  My sister and two of my college friends were also running.  Overall, the event was very well organized, and we had a positive experience other than a few missteps on the way down (US-1 and Delaware Route 1 are different … who knew?).  I would put the race near the top of my list marathon wise because of how well it was run and extra thought the race organizers put into the event.

The Expo

I drove down to Virginia Beach with my family on Friday night, so we stopped by the expo Saturday morning.  We stayed at the Holiday Inn Oceanside, so the expo was only a short 8 block walk.  The sun was out and SHINING, leaving us all feeling pretty warm, even after just the short walk.  It was perfect for the time being, but didn’t bode well for the 26 miles the next day.

The expo itself was quick and easy.  There were signs everywhere pointing the way and no lines anywhere to be found.  Race number pickup was organized by number, so I went straight to my area and got my bib, D-Tag, and pins and was on my way.  For anyone that forgot their number, volunteers were stationed outside to help them look it up.

A couple of my friends were coming down later Saturday evening and were worried they would not be able to get to the expo in time, so I picked up their gear for them.  That was also very easy.  The event’s website had prominent instructions for picking up someone else’s number (bring a signed confirmation card, copy of the runner’s photo id, and a letter stating that I could pick up the number), and pickup was exactly as billed.  I have been to other races that make you jump through a lot more hoops and even charge additional fees for picking up someone else’s number.  That type of thing really irks me, so Shamrock making the whole process simple and straight forward was much appreciated.

The expo was well organized and easy to get through.

After picking up all the numbers, I regrouped with my family and we moved on to the shirt and bag pickup.  The event organizers decided to be a bit more green this year and did away with the traditional goodie bag.  Instead, all runners got a nice re-usable gear bag and were emailed a web link ahead of time that included the traditional goodie bag ads and offers.  Runners were left to print any offers they wanted on their own.  This actually was quite nice.  Often times when I’m leaving an expo, I feel like I’m constantly rummaging through all the papers just to make sure I didn’t leave my bib behind somewhere, and I end up tossing 90% of the papers anyway.

The shirts for this event were really nice.  Marathoners got long-sleeve Brooks tech shirts and half-marathoners got the corresponding short sleeve shirt.  The shirt was about as high quality as I’ve gotten from any marathon and the volunteers were friendly and helpful, letting people try on various sizes before choosing which one they wanted.

The tech shirt for the 2010 Shamrock Marathon

After shirt pickup, you got funneled through the official gear area of the expo (pretty typical these days).  I didn’t see too much of interest other than a $1 sticker that I bought to add to the growing collection on the side of my filing cabinet in my office at home.  All purchases were bagged in a bright green re-usable grocery bag which also was a bit nicer than the typical plastic bag you usually get.

The expo itself had a number of vendors and booths.  I picked up some extra Body Glide and Sports Beans and wandered around with my sister for a bit.  We also located the pace group booth and chatted with the pacers finding out the details for the next day, as both my sister and I were planning on hanging with a pace group for at least part of the race.  The pacers were friendly and answered our questions, sending us on our way with a few final warnings about preparing for the heat the next day.

We regrouped with the rest of our family at the front stage of the expo.  A girls irish dance troupe was performing and keeping my 1 1/2 year old niece occupied.  We watched for a few more minutes before leaving the expo and heading back to the hotel.  Overall, there was nothing extraordinary about the expo, but you could tell that race organizers had planned it well and had done pretty much all of the small things right.

Virgina Beach

As I’ve already mentioned, we stayed at the Holiday Inn Oceanside.  The price was a bit steep, but the hotel was nice, and the location was very convenient for the race.  The staff was friendly and helpful, even going out of there way to accommodate us after we had mistakenly booked smoking as opposed to non-smoking rooms.  All rooms we ended up in had ocean views and had a great view of the sunrise.  Also, all races except the half-marathon went right by the hotel.  For a good 1 1/2 hours, there was a pretty constant flow of 8K runners/walkers cruising by on Saturday morning.  We had breakfast at the hotel on Saturday which was the pretty standard all-you-can-eat buffet fare.  Prior to breakfast we had asked to the hotel staff if there was a good place to pick up bagels or other breakfast food.  Surprisingly, they told us there really wasn’t any place close that would sell a bagel.  The rooms were equipped with mini-fridges though, so we were able to grab some bagels and cream cheese from the buffet and take them back to our rooms for a pre-race breakfast the next morning.

The 8K race ran right by the Holiday Inn on Saturday

For lunch on Saturday, we ate at Zero’s subs.  The food was a little bit better than average, but it was close-by and reasonably priced.  The eating area also had a number of TVs, all tuned in to the various NCAA games, so we were able to catch most of the (disappointing) Villanova game while eating lunch.

Later Saturday afternoon we took a walk down by the beach.  Virgina Beach has a nice board walk with a separated path for cyclists.  It’s a nice setup, but being used to the Jersey Shore beaches, I couldn’t help but think the high-rise hotels took something away from what should’ve been a relaxing environment.

On the way back, we walked up Atlantic Ave. trying to scope out a restaurant for dinner.  All the restaurants were either booked up already or were places that didn’t really appeal for a pre-marathon dinner (mexican food would have likely been a bad choice).  We eventually settled on driving down to Rudee’s on the Inlet for dinner.  They didn’t take reservations but advised us that as long as we got down before 7:00 or so the wait would be minimal.  We got there around 6:15 and waited a fairly reasonable 10 minutes for a table for 8.  The food was very good.  They had a number of seafood dishes that the non-marathoners enjoyed and a few pasta dishes that the rest of us pretty much stuck to.  I got  the Fettuccine Alfredo with Chicken.  The dish came with a salad and bread, and the portion sizes were more than adequate.  The service also was good, and we all departed, satisfied and headed back to our hotels for some rest.