Running Through Soupy-Swamp, Tower Water & Karen Needs to Chill!

Yo man, what it is blood? Things cray cray round here. Sorry I haven’t been on the blog world very often lately, but I’ve ben hella-busy. I’ve also been hella-focused on Chicago Marathon training…focused like my telescope on my neighbor Karen when she’s working in the yard a meditating monk.

That’ said, I’m trying to keep my Instagram game strong in case you really want to follow along with my journey to Chi Town…

I just ran 12 miles on a Tuesday, I’ll loiter if I want to.

Anyway guys, it’s been a rough summer. Rough like cat tongues. This is my first time training for a Fall (Autumn) marathon. Which means it’s my first time trying to run gahundreds of miles in Texas heat. It’s been hot and humid, y’all.

Runners are wilting, cacti are thriving.

4am alarm clocks phones only get you up early enough to shield you from your neighbor Karen seeing you in her bushes the sun. It don’t much shield you from oppressive heat and humidity. But we plug along…errrday.

I try to stay near water towers, ya know, in case I need more water…or towers.

6 days a week we’re at it. Leaving puddles of sweat behind us. I’m sure some coyote is out there tracking my salty trail as we speak.

Tower, give me your delicious water!

And boy howdy have we ever left some tracks all over Dallas. We’re running out of new places to run…literally.

Just another manic weekday.

But guess what kids????? We actually had a break in the hella-weather. First came rare rain…

What is that wet stuff falling from the sky?

Then came a cold cool front!!!!!!!!!!! Oh miraculous DAY!!!

I was stunned. Frozen in disbelief. I didn’t want to let it go.

It was so effing uhmazeing! The humidity was non-existent. I felt like I had been let out of a swampy cage and released into a land of easy breathing and evaporating sweat!

Felt like I was flying!!!!

But alas, it only alasted 4 days. 4 incredible, beautiful, wondrous days. But now the heat and humidity are back with an effing vengeance…like Karen when she found my binoculars Rambo.

Please tree, hide me from the mean boogie weather man.

But we got no choice, Cap. Gotta keep truckin. Less than a month until the marathon. We can tough it out.

What’s that? The cardinal rule is “just keep running”? Okie Dokie!

The heat couldn’t have come back at a worse time. In the middle of a 57 mile week. 22 big miles on Sunday alone. But we will tough it out, we will get stronger, and we will fly in Chicago.

How bout you? Ready for Fall much? Are you keeping at it? Why is Karen so up tight?

-Scott

Snow Won’t Let Me Run…Me Hate Snow!

I just ain’t been myself lately. Last week I was sick and  so I had to miss some runs. This past week the weather really went south and so I had to miss some runs. Needless to say, I wasn’t jumping with joy.

Before I go further, you should know that I grew up in Ohio. So I’ve had my fill of cold yucky snowy winters. Been there, run that…

One time in high school the newspaper photog caught our track team training in the ever-present cold (I’m the one with the bandana face)

Now I wasn’t completely all humbug about it, mind you. In fact, we did take the opportunity to teach the kids how to make snowballs and snowangels.

Any time you can add violence to an activity, the boy will like it.

She looks about as thrilled as I was.

But after the novelty wore off (about 45 minutes), the kids were over the cold wet stuff as much as I was. But that didn’t make it go away. Nope, freezing temps kept the roads icy. I can’t run on ice. It was so bad, that they had to cancel a big race over the weekend…kind of. The Cowtown 5k, 10k, 13.1, 26.2, & Ultra was scheduled to go down, but they had to cancel all but the 13.1 due to icy roads. Bummer.

Yuck.

I did however, make it to yoga class. I was one of a handful who braved the elements. I saw a running friend in class, and we talked about how we both felt ill from not being able to run. I get it ~ if you are used to doing something every day, and then suddenly stop for a couple weeks, you’re going to feel off.

I feel like I’m about to go cray cray. I’m not missing another day. I don’t care what’s out there, I’m hitting the roads.

In the mean time, I’ve been comforting myself the best way I know how. With tacos…

Vegetarian tacos will warm me up.

We do what we gotta do, right?

How bout you? Weather, illness, etc. affect your workouts lately? Love or Hate the snow/cold? Who else is thankful for tacos in desperate times like these?

-Scott

Key West Half Marathon or Bust!

Things have been hectic, per usual. This time it’s as I prepare for sunny Florida and the Key West Half Marathon.

Can’t wait to be 90 miles from Cuba again.

I gotta tell ya, it couldn’t come at a better time. The weather around North Texas has been, shall we say, less than stellar. Cold, Rainy, Windy. I’m over it. Hard to run in this garbage regularly without going mental.

What’s been staring me in the face on my 6am runs.

Despite the conditions, I’ve continued to stick to the plan – and by plan, I mean not skipping any runs/workouts. My last “long” run was this past weekend with WRRC. We went all over Dallas. Totaling over 15 miles, at a decent pace. Hopefully this means I’ll be in decent shape for the race!

So there ya go. Next stop: beaches, boats, bars, & ballads. I’ll try to keep up with the blog, but if not, you can always find me posting nonsense on my Instagram. Stay tuned for vacay/race updates!!!

How bout you? Getting your workouts in despite crummy weather? Anyone else heading to where the weather suits your clothes? Will anyone else be in Key West for the half marathon???

-Scott

Cold Running, Sliders, & Disappointing a Celebrity Chef

It’s been cold around North Texas. I know I shouldn’t complain, after all, it took us to January to finally get some uncomfortably cold weather. But Scotty no likey.

Took my gloves off to take the photo. Mistake.

WTFrick?!?

I hate the dreadmill even worse than the cold, so I put on layers and hit the road. Why? Can’t stop. Won’t stop! Just a little more than a week until the Key West Half Marathon!!!

Soon my friend, soon.

Anyways, other than that, let me catch you up on some of what else has been going on in my world. Here’s the randomness in pictures.

Took a pic with the Dirk mural.

Kids were fascinated by the balloon animal maker lady.

I took a sneaky selfie with Pepsi (her real name) and Sarah & TriKohl at the latter’s going away party.

Had lunch with my celebrity chef friend, Trevor Ball. Look for him on the Food Network again in the coming months.

Then promptly disappointed him by eating these Sliders. Had to, it was a gift, and it’s a taste of home (Ohio).

But quickly redeemed myself by eating these tacos.

Then took a pic of the lil girl’s teeth, which are coming in quite nicely!

So there ya go. It’s been cold, random, and fun round these parts. On to the weekend and more coldy cold miles to run…and more randomness, I’m sure. Wouldn’t have it any other way!

How bout you? Love or hate Sliders? You running in the cold or takin it to the treadmill? Any randomness going on with you?

-Scott

Running Frozen, New Ambassadorship &Soccer Season Ends

Sorry I’ve been MIA recently…well, actually I wish I was in MIA as it would be a lot warmer than it is here in Texas this week. But I digress…

Yes, we also got that Arctic Blast that blasted much of the USA. It went from 80 degrees on Monday, to below freezing for the rest of the week. Let’s just say that my transition to cold running hasn’t been so pretty. I still ran each day, but I wasn’t loving it.

So cold that a snowflake formed on my shirt.

Now I know that it could be much worse, and it is much worse up North, but I feel Frozen. Ah well, I just need to let it go. (See what I did there)

Before the cold snap blasted our backsides, we were able to sneak in a season’s end party for the Landsharks. I guess we had a decent enough season because they renewed my coaching contract for next season.

We couldn’t get one picture all season with all eyes open.

And now for some other cold cool news. I’ve been named an ambassador for Ramblen! You can see my Ramblen profile HERE!!!

What is Ramblen? Basically they’re for folks who like to take their workout gear with them when they travel. It helps you find places to run, workout, etc. when visiting a city…or even finding new places in your own hometown. Pretty cool.

I like this because I always take my running shoes when I travel. Like in North Crackalaka…

Running in OBX, NC, USA.

Or in sunny Orlando…

Running at Disney World.

Or on the open sea…

Runnin during an Alaskan cruise.

I gotta tell you about that last photo. I need to write a post on it someday, but let me just say that the miles fly by when the views are like this…

Mountains & icebergs.

Or like this…

Mountains & glaciers.

I’ve been to Alaska a couple times. It.Is.Uhmaizing. I can’t even describe the views there. Maybe someday I’ll get to run a race there (that’s not on a cruise ship). We’ll see!

How bout you? Do you workout when you travel? Did you get arctic blasted? What’s the most amazing place you’ve seen?

-Scott

Whether to Weather the Weather and Run

Talk about a tail tale of two runs.  This past weekend, I was going to go for a 10 mile run.  It was harsh.  This morning I was going for a 4 mile run.  It was radical.

I know there are a ton of factors that go into a good/bad run.  But I’m giving the edge in these ones to the weather.

The other day it was windy, humid and near 90 degrees.  This morning it was windy, humid and 54 degrees! Thank you cold chilly front!

The other day I got my ten miles in, but it was sweaty and laborious.  This morning I got my four miles in and it was less sweaty and glorious.  I only wish it wasn’t a school day so that I could have kept running!

I know there’s nothing you can do about the weather – you gotta run anyways.  And they don’t often cancel races for the conditions (unless it’s extreme).

In fact, at the 2012 Disney Marathon, they had a warm hot front come through and so they had to put up these signs everywhere…

Awww, but runDisney, I wanted to PR!

The heat and humidity of that race caused me to finish about 45 minutes slower than I wanted to.  I was bummed.  I felt like I had done all that training for not knot naught.

Despite my finger I didn’t actually finish in first place.  Yes, I was a bit sweaty.

I was so bummed that while drowning in a post race celebratory beer (oxymoron?), I tweeted to Actor, Runner, Hobbit – Sean Astin asking for advice.  To my surprise, he tweeted back.

Puts it in perspective.

I realized he was right.  I got to run a marathon.  I got to do it outside.  It’s a good thing.  So now I always try to remember that when ever the conditions don’t cooperate – it’s still a good thing what I’m doing.  Just hope that the next time it will be better.

And for now I’m going to hope this little freaky fall-in-spring weather we got today will stick around…at least long enough for my run tomorrow.

How bout you?  How do you handle changing weather conditions (weird fact, I tend to get random bloody noses when the seasons change – attractive, huh?)?  Any celeb twitter interactions recently? 

-Scott

ps. looking back, this post may have been partially inspired by Salt.  She’s freaking out about her upcoming race.  She’s got nothing to fear tho!

38 Mile Weekend, Toe Update, & Tacos

I made it through my last weekend of long runs before the Disney Dopey Challenge!  It technically started Thursday with 3 miles and a weight session.  Friday was 5 miles and I felt good.  Saturday was 10 miles, but lightning and rain forced me to do it on the dreaded treadmill.  Ugh, but my legs felt good.  And I think the boredom I have to fight on that thing will help me mentally come race day!

Sunday was the 20 miler.  Luckily the rain stopped, but it was replaced by 15-20 mph winds from the cold North.  Temps were around freezing and with the wind chill it said it felt like 25 degrees (American).  And I did the run at Dallas’ White Rock Lake.  The wind was really whipping off the lake and I was really fighting it.

I did not have a great run.  I felt sluggish (like a wet sponge) and wanted it to be over 3 miles in.  But I powered through it and got er done!  38 miles over 4 days!!!

I even ran into my mom who was also running, as well as a couple friends who wanted to meet me down there.

One of my friends. Pic taken by another one.

After finishing that tough tough run and our body temps cooled off, we got really cold!  How to warm up?  TACOS!

Mmmmm tacos. That’s how you feel better, right there!

I was pretty worn down afterwards.  I wasn’t able to get off the couch all that much.  I think part of the issue is that I did that whole 20 miles on a little water, 1 Gu and 1 Honey Stinger.  200 calories ingested during a 20 mile run don’t really make up for the 3,000 or so I burned!  I’ll be better about this come race day.  Hopefully running on empty will make me stronger.  I hope.

WARNING:  While on the couch, I couldn’t help taking a pic of the progressing bruising/blistering ole toe.

#blacktoe

It doesn’t really bother me at all, just looks gross.  But I kind of like it because it reminds me of my all time fave movie: “Lost in Translation”.  It has a scene where ScarJo stubs her toe and later on shows it to Bill “effin” Murray while they eat sushi, and he calls it “Brack toe” and says it’s probably a delicacy in Japan.  I can’t help but keep calling it my bracktoe.  You can see the short movie clip HERE.

So there we go, now it’s TAPER-TIME!

What’s your go-to post long run meal?  How bad do your feet get blistered and bruised by the end of training season?  What’s your fave movie?

Will Run 4 Tacos

It’s still bitterly cold here in Dallas (in fact, the news dude said it’s colder than Anchorage, Alaska), and there’s still plenty of ice on everything.  Good news is that a mysterious bright yellow-orange sphere made an appearance in the sky for the first time in several days.  The sunshine helped warm things up a bit and melt some of the ice.  It’s not all gone though, and I’m weary to run outside as I don’t want to step on an icy patch and possibly hurt myself a month before my races!  Also, my knee is a little sore after the 32 mile weekend of running.  So I took today off of running and went to the gym instead to pump iron.

But the real highlight was tacos!  For some reason, tacos just sound good after a run.  And so to reward myself for the weekend, I went and got my self some Torchy’s Tacos.

Mmmmm, tacos.

The one on the left is called the Mr. Pink because the star of it is seared ahi tuna!

The one on the right is called the Dirty Sanchez because, well, I’m not sure why.  It’s full of scrambled eggs among other things.  (feel free to urban dictionary the name if you aren’t familiar)

So there ya go.  Running, tacos, it’s all good.

What about you?  What do you reward yourself with?  You want a Dirty Sanchez, don’t you? 

 

We’ve been BLANCHED!

I know some of you fancy yourselves to be amateur cooks, so you should know what blanching is.  For those who don’t – for example, it’s when you’re boiling asparagus until it gets nice and bright green, then you immediately remove it and put in a bath of ice water to stop the cooking.  Well that’s what happened to us here in Dallas.  It was 80 degrees (American) one day….the very next day we were covered in ice.  Yup.

The little monsters exploring the ice-snow.

So yeah, we’ve been blanched pretty good.  I guess we were done cooking.

Anyway, pretty much the whole city shuts down whenever we get any bit of snow or ice.  They even cancelled the Dallas Marathon.  Bummer for everyone who spent the past few months training.  And bummer for me because I was going to use part of the race course for my 19 mile Dopey Challenge training run on Sunday.  Not sure what I’m going to do now.

Today called for 4 miles which I begrudgingly did on the dreadmill at the gym.  I much prefer the outdoors, but I don’t want to step on an icy patch and take a nasty spill.

I’m supposed to do 9 miles on Saturday before the 19 on Sunday.  Here’s hoping I can do it outdoors!!!  Come on sidewalks and streets, de-ice yo-selves!

Also, I found an old pic from a newspaper in my hometown in Ohio.  It shows some of us high school track and field kids winter-training down the coldy snowy streetys.  I’m the one on the right with the bandana on my face – I can’t remember if it was to fight the cold air, or if I was going to rob a stage-coach afterwards.

Hardcore, baby!

Those were the days before all the fancy tech-thermal-moisture-wicking-temperature-regulating gear that folks wear now-a-days.  Back then it was cotton and wool.  You probably like my sweats and wool cap!  The cool http://raceitliveitloveit.com/ blogger recently talked about those days on one of her posts.  It wasn’t that long ago!

What about you?  Did you get blanched?  Do you run in ice or snow or stick to treadmills?  Ever run in sweat pants and shirts? 

Dopey Challenge Training Missed Workout

For the first time in almost 4 months, I’m having to skip a workout from my training plan.  I. Hate. It.  But I have no choice.  I did something to my knee, not sure what.

The week started good – last weekend called for me to run a total of 26 miles – check!  Monday rest – easy check.  Tuesday 4 miles – check.  Wednesday 8 miles – check*.

Click the pic to enlarge it.

*This is where something went wrong.  We had our first really bad cold front come through early that morning.  The temps went from shorts and t-shirt weather to sub-freezing in a matter of hours.  I woke up early for my 8 miler, saw that it was 29 degrees, cursed in my head, then busted out the winter running gear for the first time this season.

I got all bundled, did my dynamic warm up, and hit the roads.  It was taking me a while to get loose in the cold, and off and on my left knee did feel the slightest uncomfortable, but I still ran a pretty decent pace (for me) at that distance for a training run – 8:11 miles – and didn’t think much of it.  Thought everything was normal.

Then I showered and drove to work.  No big whoop.  But when I got out of the car, it hurt to walk.  The inside of my left knee hurt every step.  I’ve never had this pain before.

Hoping it would go away, I got up today wanting to do my planned 4 miler – nope.  I went to the gym like normal, but couldn’t do what I normally do.  Still hurts to walk.

Frustrating!  All my training was going so well!  I will probably have to skip my 11 miler on Saturday and yoga on Sunday if it doesn’t improve.  May have to get it checked out.  I hope not.  I hope it’s just a little strain that will heal quickly.  Grrrr.

Anyway, ever have any weird “injury”?  Any idea what’s the deal with my knee (yes internet people, give me a diagnosis – especially if you’re a doctor)?