The Shamrockin' Half Marathon is one of the best races I have ever done. Not because I did great, in fact, It was a struggle because I ran a PR the weekend before. I love the Shamrockin' Half because you start out at Raley Field (home of the Sacramento Rivercats) along the street and end on the field itself. More on that in a bit.

The race starts in waves. It made for a really easy start that wasn't too incredibly crowded. Over the course you run over the Tower Bridge, in downtown Sacramento, along the American River bike trail, and you finish the race by entering the baseball field (in the outfield) and run along the dirt warning track until the finish line along the third base line. It is so awesome to enter the field, completely exhausted and have fans cheering you on.

There is also a section where you run in front of the Blue Diamond Headquarters where they have a cheering squad. It is a great energy boost when where are tons of people giving you high-fives and cheering you on.

The bathrooms in the field are open to the racers before and after the race. They also have tons of port-o-potties (which were almost all vacant with no lines). They had tons of snacks for after the race and had about 50 massage therapists for free post race massages. The shirt and medal were awesome too.

I can't say enough good things about this race. The biggest negative is that trying to get out of the parking lot was a bit of a mess, but hopefully they fixed that for future races.