Lots of Christmas Runs, Stage Shows, Wild Yoga & Randomness Galore

It’s been non-stop gangbusters lately. Let me try and ketchup…

What am I up to? Oh, just making it rain, dear.

Of course, Christmas was upon us, and so the kiddos were amped.

1/3 of these folks had a wet diaper. Can you guess which one?

But the holidays don’t mean my legs get a break. And on Xmas Eve I met up with a big group of local runners for a morning run.

Getting my Zen on before the run.

Christmas morning I went on a solo run. I saw a surprising amount of people at the park.

For my long run this week, I got in a half marathon. It was really really windy.

At the last minute my run bud messaged me and said she’d run with me. So glad she did. It made the miles go by much faster. We didn’t take a pic, but here’s us at last month’s Thanksgiving Day race.

Such a pill…gram.

 

While we were at the show, the grandparents took the kids to the zoo…

Penguins is practically chickens.

Free turtle rides!

The next morning I met up with some more friends for a trail run. We got in 6+ miles, and even mixed in a little yoga…

Not sure if these are actual poses or not. But there’s no rules in yoga, right?

But it doesn’t stop there. Next we took the kiddos to see Disney Live…

Pirates vs Princesses. Guess which team I’m on.

Ha, I gotta say that it was drastically different than the ‘Once’ show – a lot less ‘F-bombs’.

Anywhoodle, that night my friends messaged me that they wanted to go on a second run for the day, but this time it was around a fancy neighborhood that is famous for their Christmas lights.

Tree Pose.

Look, it’s Santa flying! I know him!

I need to have these green spots checked out.

So there it is, kids. The reason for my blog-cation. It’s been a crazy train time around here. Hopefully things will relax just a bit, but it has been a fun ride!

How bout you? Crazy Holidaze? Gettin your workouts in? Any fun group runs?

-Scott

Rudolph Run 5k ~ New PR, Two Medals & I VLOGGED!

Over the weekend I ran the 19th annual Rudolph Run 5k in Allen, Texas. And good news, I set a PR*** and got 2nd in my age group!

Two Medals ~ Twice as nice!

You’ll notice in the picture that I got two medals. That’s cause last year’s race was cancelled due to an ice storm. So they gave us those medals too! So I guess techincally, I will go down in history as the 2nd place finisher in both races!

Now, I’ve never run this race before, but I sometimes go for training runs there, so I was familiar with the area.

The course.

The course goes past some historic landmarks. We were even at the spot of the first ever train robbery in Texas. Kinda cool! And while not really hilly, it did have a couple long steady inclines. The last one being the last half mile of the race. But I pushed through.

Final results:

21:29, 2nd in Age Group, 33rd Overall (out of 948)

***Buuuuuuut, my GPS watch said I actually ran 3.19 miles and that I finished my 5k in 20:58. I have a feeling that is pretty accurate because at the previous week’s North Texas Turkey Trot 5k I ran 20:04 on a short course (2.95 miles), and would’ve finished right around 21  or 21:15. (click on the link for that race recap). Either way, it was fun and a 21:29 is still a PR anyway!

Vlogging during the race.

Oh, and I ran this whole race with a GoPro camera. I put together a short VLOG of the event. Watch it if you have two minutes to spare! Bad puns and all!

So all in all, a successful race and a good time!!!

How bout you? Any holiday themed races? Which of my jokes in the video were the worst? Ever win two medals in one race?

-Scott

I Finally Mastered Yoga & Ran Hilly Miles & Ate Tacos

Nuther krazy weekend, kids…But good news, I finally mastered yoga!!! After yesterday’s hilly 7 mile run, my elf friend and I totally nailed chair and tree poses.

We finally found the Keebler tree.

The day before that, I had woked up early for a long run. This time the WRRC and DRC teamed up at White Rock Lake in Dallas. I ended up running 13 really HILLY miles in the neighborhoods East of the lake.

Yes Virginia, Dallas hills are real.

After those two days of hilly runs, (plus the previous 4 days of runs), my legs were feelin it. I had to help them recover by eating many many tacos. My fave of the weekend was from a farm to taco joint called Good to Go Taco.

Local chorizo and mashed taters in a taco? Yes, they went there. And the,y in turn went to my belly.

And some more good news – we got a warm front this weekend, so we had a very nice 75 degree day. We took advantage with a patio brunch and attending a big Christmas tree lighting ceremony.

All in all a pretty good lil weekend. And there’s more! I got some big news over the weekend, but you’ll have to wait for that. Stay tuned!

How bout you? Have a good weekend? Have you mastered yoga yet? Who wants tacos (besides our friend over at Walk to Rio 2016) who was taunting me on Instagram over the weekend with his Mexico City tacos)?

-Scott

Holiday Recap: Runnin & Funnin

One year ago, I went out on Christmas Eve to do some last minute shopping.  It was awful – the crowds, the traffic, etc.  This year I did the same thing.  Apparently I’m not smart enough to learn from my mistakes.

The Murrayest time of year!

But this year, it wasn’t so bad…I was much more calm this time around.  The hoards didn’t bother me.  In fact, I kind of liked all the people watching.  I even had my sense of humor intact, as you can see in this 6 second video I shot in the mall.

How was I able to cope?  I ran before hand, of course!

Following my Disney Dopey Challenge Hal Higdon training plan, I had 5 miles scheduled for Christmas Eve.  I felt pretty good on my run.  After a weekend that saw me run 38 slow miles, it felt good to do a fast five!!!  I really believe that starting the day with a run really helped me cope with the holiday shoppers.  Though it would come back to haunt me later…

My wife’s family always celebrates Christmas right when the clock strikes midnight.  It’s always a night of fun and food, but these days I’m not much of a night owl.  Since I get up so early to run most days, and since I’m always a little tired from said runs, I can’t hang like I used to.  Once again this year, I had to be woken up at midnight to join the celebration.  So I slept at a party, that’s the price runners pay, right?

The little girl was not a fan of the fat man.

On Christmas Day we had a small gift opening party with our immediate family.  Naturally, I got some running gear.   I always like to wear an Ohio University shirt at big races, as you can see…

Disney Marathon 2012

Then it was off to my parents house for a big get together of family and friends.  A highlight was a gag gift exchange.  I originally won this weird Russian box of chocolates, and my fake smile serves to contain my excitement…

If I ate that box, along with that bacon chocolate = me fat indeed!

All in all it was a pretty good holiday!  Oh, and the little girl did get into the spirit once away from Santa…

The other Santa must’ve smelled like beef and cheese.

Back to training today.  A short 4 miler plus weights.  Almost time to get Dopey!

Did you have a Murray Christmas?  Get any good gear?  Does Santa make you cry too?  Do you have any go-to race shirts?

Runner vs Dog…AGAIN!

A while back I posted about a dog encounter on my run, along with my tips for those situations. This morning I got to use my own advice again.

It was early this morning.  Still dark.  I was 3 miles into my 5 miler.  All of the sudden about 20 yards in front of me these two loose dogs that I hadn’t seen in the darkness just went nuts barking at me.

I immediately paused my gps watch running.  But I did not run away.  Whosever house I was in front of had left their trash and recycling bins by the sidewalk for collection.  I began pounding on the bins to make loud noises.  I yelled at the dogs in a loud deep voice.

One was obviously the leader, and the other stayed behind him.  I did not pay the other any attention, I focused on the leader.

Photo break – here’s another neighbor’s house. He likes this time of year, I guess.

Now they didn’t immediately retreat, but they did stop in their tracks.  We had a good ole fashioned stand off for a few minutes (or at least it seemed like).  Neither of us budged…they kept barking and I kept yelling at them and banging on the bin.  I’m sure I must’ve woke up some of the neighbors.  I did not care.  I was secretly hoping to wake up the owners of the dogs (if they lived in one of the houses there).

I then took my jacket up in my arms stretched over my head to make myself look bigger.  I started to take steps toward them, and the leader held strong.  The other dog backed up some into the street, and luckily a car came from behind it that spooked it.  When I took more steps, the other dog ran off.  Then the leader finally submitted when I took a few aggressive steps toward them.  I picked up a newspaper to throw at them, but after a defiant final bark, he retreated with the other.

I waited a few seconds to make sure they didn’t return, dropped the paper, and ran in another direction.

I’ve encountered countless dogs on my runs, but this was the first time I faced a pair.  They definitely took longer to back down, but they did.

I know I’ve asked this before, but what do you do when confronting a hound?  Ever come across a pack?  Ever banged on a neighbor’s trash can at 6 am?

Thanksgiving Running, Gear Deals, & Butt Sweat Hearts

Over the weekend I got to run again!  I had taken 8 days off to let my knee heal more, and on Turkey Day I gave it another go.  I ended up going an easy 4 miles.  Progress!  If you missed what happened the rest of that day, you can see it here.

Anyway, it was stiff and not quite right, but much better than it had been last time.  So come Saturday, I decided to give it another go.  My RockTape came in the mail (which was exciting for me) so I taped up the leg, and met with my peeps at Project Run 214.

Some of the group!

Many of them are preparing for the Dallas Half and Full Marathon this coming weekend.  This was their last big training run.  I was supposed to go 12 miles, but told myself I’d take it easy breezy lemon squeezy.  I’d be very happy if I even made it to double digits.

Well, a funny thing happened.  I ended up running in the front with a gal who will be doing her first half come Sunday.  I hadn’t seen the training course, and of course, we got off track.  I didn’t want to cut out early and leave her, so we just kept going.  Ended up finishing over 13 miles on our make-shift route.  I was thrilled for her going that far for the first time, and happy that my knee held up!

The real test came the rest of the day, I didn’t want the knee to hurt me like it had after my earlier runs.  I’m glad to say that it didn’t the rest of the day!  I think the Arnica, rest, cross training, and other stuff I’m doing is helping!

My kind of PED’s.

When I woke the next day, it did hurt some, but not as bad as before.  I went to yoga, and that seemed to really help it.  It’s still not right, but it’s getting better.  Hopefully I can continue to run while it heals completely.

Anyway, it was also a big shopping weekend here in the States as companies roll out specials.  I was in luck because a new store in the RunOn chain opened near my house.  Besides the weekend specials, they also had grand opening deals.  Besides that they also gave gift cards if you brought in old pairs of shoes to recycle.  Besides that I had earned some cash in their rewards program.  All combined, I was able to score a pair of my Brooks Pure Flow 2 for a really really really good price (and they threw in a pair of Feetures socks, double score)!  Aaaand, they had free beer and snacks.  Triple score!

My butt sweat where I sat shows that I heart Brooks shoes.

Also this weekend, since Thanksgiving is now over, we set up the fake Christmas tree.

All our ornaments on the bottom half of the tree.

Another highlight came when the boy and I had our own brunch date at one of our fav Tex Mex joints.  Like me, he also likes to ham it up for the camera…

I wonder where he gets it from?

So pretty good times.

How bout you?  Get any good gear deals?  Is your crib decorated for the holidays?  How was you weekend?

Weekend Whirlwind: Emmys, Running, and American Gladiators!

I’ll try to keep this brief and let the pictures do the talking.  Friday I ran 17 miles and felt good.  Saturday I ran 2 miles and felt like bricks.  But after that run I got on a plane and flew to San Antonio for the Lone Star Emmy Awards Gala where we were nominated for 5 Emmys!

Looking for the basement at the Alamo.

Then got all gussied up for the brew ha ha.

I wanted to have a duck lipped selfie.

Then went to the ballroom for the festivities where I met a couple guys in nude tuxedos.

This one is for the frosted fitness blogger lady!

Ran into some of my friends who were also nominated for Emmys.  Here’s my buddy Emily Reppert – host of Chevy Hometown Kids on Fox Sports Southwest.

I almost wore that same dress…man, would that have been embarrassing.

Out of the 5 nominations, we took home 2 Emmys!

Pretty cool night!

Since we won 2, I got to make 2 speeches.  I think my jokes were funny.  Others might not be as amused.  haha.

Saying something important, I’m sure.

The next morning I ran a 7 miler around the city.  Had breakfast with a friend, then flew back to Dallas. Ran into Nitro from American Gladiators at the airport.  2nd time I’ve run into him, so figured it was a sign to have a chat with him.  Very nice guy.  Now he promotes the Gladiator Rock n Run.  Worlds colliding!

Right before we went through the gauntlet!

Once home, the wife and I went to get some veggie burgers.

So my veggie burger wouldn’t get lost, they branded it.

I then met up with a bunch of my runner friends for a big tree lighting ceremony.  I brought one of my Emmys, people liked taking photos with it.

We don’t always run, we sometimes have other fun.

Yes, it was a Christmas tree lighting.  I don’t know why they did it, it’s not even Thanksgiving yet!  But they lit up the whole square as well.  All the trees are lit, looks nice!

I’m so totally lit right now.

Obviously, it was a tremendous weekend.  I’m still processing it all.  But I’m also very thankful.  I work hard, and appreciate the recognition.

I had to give the golden lady a kiss.

Anyway, how was your weekend?  Which American Gladiator would you like to meet?  Tell me something good that happened to you recently!