Blog Birthday, Fly Fight, Drew Carey & Tacos

Hey kids, guess what? I just noticed that a few posts ago I wrote my 300th blog entry here. Now I’m at like 306 or something. So that’s good I guess. I just wonder where I’d be at if I didn’t ever take my “break”.

What had happened was that when I started training for my first marathon in 2007, I got bombarded with the same question every day, “How’s your training going?” I decided it’d just be easier to write a blog about it so people could follow along. And so I did…for a few years. But then I had a minor freak out about personal thoughts on the net and deleted the entire thing. All of it gone.

Fast forward a couple years and I got back in the game. It’s been fun. I hope to keep it going. So happy birthday Blog…here’s a cake.

My friend’s “Walmart Cake” I love this. So much.

I was just telling Amy over at Fitness Meets Frosting about that cake, and now she knows I wasn’t making it up!

Anyway, this morning I was on my run and came along the path where I saw the nude photo shoot a few weeks back.

There were no budding artists this time, but there was a horsefly. This thing followed me for a good quarter mile and kept nipping at my head. I got pretty frustrated and started yelling at it.

“Seriously dude?!?”

“Come on man, knock it off!”

And finally, “That’s it, you want to come at me bro?!?” I stopped running and turned to fight it.

After a few seconds of flapping my arms about in a manly way, I finally scared it off. I also scared something else. I didn’t realize that behind me was some dude jogging. He had turned the corner to see me swatting at the air and yelling at an invisible foe. He looked at me sideways as he ran past.

Oh well, what ya gonna do?

In other news, Jason over at Must Love Jogs keeps mentioning that he doubts my claims of having met Drew Carey before. Well here’s your proof. (It’s before he lost all the weight.)

Just a couple Ohio boys hanging out at a soccer match in Texas. Good thing I had my fake Drew Carey glasses handy.

I actually saw him another time at the Disney Marathon (yes, he’s a runner too!). But he was injured and couldn’t run, so instead he was cheering for everyone and high fiving. Pretty cool guy.

And finally, I’ve eaten at like 5 different taco joints this week. Here’s a pic of my favorite.

Oh yes. eggs, avocados, spicy things and more!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

How bout you? Anyone else want to question any of my former claims? Ever fight with an insect on a run? Ever get a “Walmart Cake”?

-Scott

The Firefly Run #blog

The time was Dallas.  The place was early Spring.  The 5k race was at night.  The runners wore lights and were kind of lit up.  I was definitely a little lit up.  Lemme ‘splain.

I hadn’t signed up for the race because I thought 45 quid was a too much to pay for a 5k, but then my buddy Zack, who did register, couldn’t run it – so I wore his chip.  The problem was the race was at night and jam packed with people.  I also had a ton of friends running it.  Why are these problems?  Because silly, it led to us tailgating before the race.

Here’s why:  1) The race organizers did a great job of marketing.  They attracted a huuuge crowd of runners, many of whom don’t really know race etiquette.  2) I know the course very well as I run there often, and I knew the roads weren’t wide enough to make for smooth running with all those folks clogging up the street.  3) 1) + 2) = no chance of having a good race time unless you can make your way to the front of the crowd before the start.  We couldn’t.

I don’t know why my friends decided not to wear costumes.

So, I decided instead to tailgate with my friends and just have fun with it.  I wasn’t expecting much of this race, but it ended up being a lot of fun.  I wore a cape and my friend Mary in the Waldo outift asked to run with me. We didn’t want to go too fast, but figured 8-830 mile pace would be good. We ended up running 8:28, so we were right on. Actually, the first mile was very slow due to all the people and walkers and mass of humanity. Lots of dodging and near crashes. After that, it cleared up a tiny bit, so we picked up the pace. I was glad I had Waldo to run with!

In retrospect, I’m kind of glad we pre-partied because they delayed the start by like 20 mins so they could get a lot of pictures from the helicopter they rented to fly over the crowd.  But, in retrospect, I’m kind of not glad ’cause it wasn’t too easy to run after a couple beerskis.  But they had a huge party after the race – bands, dancing, etc.  It was well put on.

We tend to tailgreat.

After the race, we continued the celebration.  We do how we do!

Peace!