What’s in a name? We need to call races something else.

I’ve done tons of races.  From the 40 yard dash, all the way up to a full marathon.

Fire bad!

But I think we need to make a change. And so I totes wrote an original poem about how I’m going about it:

*I’m Starting With The Man In The Mirror.  I’m Asking Him To Change His Ways. And No Message Could Have Been Any Clearer. If You Wanna Make The World A Better Race Take A Look At Yourself, And Then Make A Change.  Na Na Na, Na Na Na, Na Na, Na Nah*

*©~piratebobcat

I’m in a race.

When I was training for the Disney Dopey Challenge I started wondering.  That’s what happens when you run a lot of miles – you have time to think.  I started wondering why only the ‘Marathon’ has a real name.  As in, “I’m running a marathon.”

And a TBT race.

Now there’s also the half marathon.  And that makes sense because it’s half the distance of a full marathon (coincidentally).

Doin work son.

But what about our other most common races?  The 5k, the 10k, the 15k, the 10 miler, etc.  Why don’t they have names?  Why do we call them by their distances?  Why don’t we call a marathon a “42.195k?”

Trailblazing.

Most of us know the story of the ancient Greek soldier who ran the first ‘marathon’ to relay the news of their victory in battle.  Phidippides supposedly ran just about 26.2 miles to the plains of Marathon to tell the tale, then promptly died.  So yes, that makes sense that we’d call it a marathon since there’s a story behind it.

But what about a 5k?

At a recent Relay Race – We’re totes synchronized.

I did some research and according to the experts at Wikipedia, it’s loosely based on a race from the ancient Olympics called a Dolichos.  Which was about the same distance.  Ok, then, let’s call a 5k a Dolichos.  Deal?

Battle of the lobster backs.

What about a 10k?  Well I couldn’t find crap about it’s history other than it first appeared in the Olympics in Stockholm in 1912.

Running a race with my sis.

Since we name the Marathon after the area it first happened, then maybe we should call the 10k a ‘Stockholm’?

I finished this race despite only having one leg.

But then what about the 5k? Do we call it a ‘half Stockholm’?  Or is the 10k a ‘double Dolichos’?  I think I like the latter better.

Running all the miles.

I still have more research to do about the other random distances, but I think we’re off to a good start.  Until then, I’m getting ready for a Double Dolichos next week.  Bring it!

How bout you?  Any inside info as to why races are called what they’re called?  Any ideas for new names?  Anyone have a Dolichos coming up?

-Scott

 

100.5 Mile March!

In March I participated in the Fitfluential #FFMarchMiles challenge.  They wanted people to run/walk/hike to 100 miles in March.  I’m not currently training for any big races, so I was doing this for fun.  And it came down to the final day, but I got it done.

I was at 99.5 miles.  To get to 100 I took the kids and dogs on a walk.

Just a few thumbsuckers.

One mile later my feet had carried me 100.5 March miles!  It’s not as much as the gaudy monthly numbers I was putting up while training for the Dopey Challenge, but I’m happy with it!

Other than that, voting continues in the Earth Day video contest where my video is a finalist.  If you wouldn’t mind voting and sharing/tweeting, I’d be thankful!  My video is “C” and you can vote here: http://www.heb.com/page/offers-contests/earth-day-video-contest

Just look for the little girl with a bag mobile.

How bout you?  How many miles was your March?  How old is too old for thumbsucking (your own, not a strangers)? 

-Scott

Official Dopey Challenge Race Medals

The folks over at Run Disney finally posted the official photos of the brand new race medals for the Dopey Challenge.  I am running this inaugural event in January.  It’s four straight days of racing (5k, 10k, 13.1, 26.2), but you’ll notice there are six medals total.  That’s cause you also get one for doing the Dopey, and doing the Goofy (13.1 & 26.2), which is included in the Dopey.

My neck feels heavy just looking at them.

I’m glad they show us the medals ahead of time, gives us motivation!  My first marathon was the Disney Marathon in 2008, and that was the 15th anniversary of the event.  That year they kept the medal design a secret – you didn’t get to see the medal until you crossed the finish line.  But like I said, I like knowing now because I’m an impatient American!

If you click on the picture, you can see an enlarged view.  And if you see an enlarged view you’ll notice that there are two innagural etchings.  One on the Dopey and one on the 10k, as it’s the first year for that race.  Pretty cool.

Next up, I can’t wait to see the course maps.  I really liked the marathon course last year, and I’m not sure if they’ll be changing it up, but knowing Disney, they like to go all out all the time.  If they were using the same courses as last year, it’d probably still be on their website, but they ain’t on there.  Come on Run Disney, give me those maps now!  I’m an impatient American!

Haha, anywhoodle, those medals won’t come without doing the work.  So I’m back at it today with a weight session at the gym-ola, then a hot social run tonight at the pub-ola. 

What do y’all think of the new medal designs?

-Scott

Dopey Challenge Trianing Plan

Who put a cartoon character in charge of a major race?

OK, so I’ve been preparing myself the past couple months for the Dopey training.  Yes, I’ve been training for my training.  Good thing too, cause I just settled on which plan to follow and Hal Higdon is the winner!  As you can see, week 1 requires you to be able to already run 13 miles at once.  So you better have done some pre-training to be ready to do that.

Not too bad, right?

Honestly, it doesn’t seem too bad.  Sure the back to back long runs will be tough, but they’re not as long as I thought they’d be.  I may add a little extra mileage, but maybe I should be smart and stick to the schedule as made.  After all, he’s the expert.  I settled on this plan because I’ve heard a lot of good things from several runners about following his plans before for marathons.  It’s worth a try.  Though I’m sure no plan is perfect since this is the inaugural edition of the Dopey, so if nobody’s done it, then maybe nobody knows the best way to prepare for it.  And maybe there is no best way to train.  I’m sure there are several plans that good for different people.  It’s not an exact science, after all.

True words. It takes a lot of work.

My only addition to his plan is I’ll continue on with my cross training during the week.  I know he has some cross training days in there, but I currently do more than that and want to continue.  I believe it is VITAL to cross train when doing distance running.  Need to keep your body strong in order to run strong.  So I’ll keep up with yoga, weight lifting, etc.  Not sure if I’m going to play soccer this fall though – I’d hate to invest in running this Dopey only to get an injury playing soccer – may have to skip a season.

Anyway, the official kickoff for this program is September 9th, 2013.  Just gotta make sure I’m ready to run 13 miles by the end of that week in addition to the other runs.  Shouldn’t be a problem.  I’m almost to that distance on my current long run and I’m basically running 5 days a week anyway.  Here’s to hoping for a successful training season and a successful Dopey completion!!!

Too Cold to Hold 5 Miler (part 1)

So on Sunday I ran the Too Cold to Hold 5 mile race.  They also had a 5k and 10 mile, but I stuck with the 5 miler as I had never run that distance in a race before – guaranteed PR, haha!  I wanted to run fast and race it as it was a relatively short distance and for the past several months all my races have been between 10 and 26.2 miles.  It felt good to go fast, even though I wasn’t in my best speed shape.

Too Cold to Hold, Too Blurry to See

I didn’t know how fast I could go since I hadn’t done any speedwork in months, but I had one goal – to run under 40 minutes.  I figured that was plenty doable, and I figured right.  I ended up going 37:25, around a 7:25 per mile pace I think.  It was good enough for a top 40 overall finish and placing 5th in my division.

The weather was good – though warmer than I expected.  And there was not the usual blustery winds coming off White Rock Lake.  There was a nasty hill about a mile into it, but I’m glad it was there and not at the finish.  Only major problem was the big cluster of people at the start.  Anyone who knows me knows I’m a big fan of corrals, but this race didn’t have ’em.  All three races had the same start time, so the first mile definitely included a lot of bobbing and weaving around walkers and people going slower.  Always frustrating, but I didn’t get their early enough to forge my way to the front of the start crowd.  So part of that’s on me.  My bad dawg.

Anyway, we had a group of friends and Thursday Night Social Runners out there.  Several of us either PR’d, won age group awards, or had a distance record.

We should’ve ordered brighter shirts for TNSR.

Afterwards the real party started (as opposed to the fake party).  They had lots of free food and drinks (incl. beervecas).  But as always, our group remained serious and committed to professionalism, as seen in this photo.

I decided I needed the duck-lipped-hand-on-hip-one-bent-legged pose that every female seems to have on facebook.

We moved the morning to brunch, where things got super fun.  But I won’t bore you with pics of scalloped risotto and drasians (drunk Asians).  Some things are better experienced than witnessed in social media pics.

Anyhoodle, as soon as they send out the race photos, I’ll try to share a few if I look good (aka duck lips).  Hence, that’s why this post is only part 1.

Peace out Internet!

The Great Taco Run 10 Miler

Sept. 30, 2012.  Downtown Dallas.  My first 10 mile race.  Cold and a little rainy.  Decent course.  Post race tacos and cervezas.  My goal:  to run my first race negative split….then drink the free cervezas.  Mission accomplished!

It was hard at the beginning of the race to keep in control and not go out too fast.  Trying to run my first negative split, so I wanted to stick to the plan.  I wanted to see what it feels like to finish strong instead of struggling to cross the finish line.  Plus I’d been reading how pretty much every world record is done with a negative split.  Worth a shot.  Worth some experimenting.    I was able to do it, as you can see by my split times in the photograph picture below…

Watch the splits go down like an elevator.

It certainly helped that the last couple miles were all down hill!  Of course the couple miles before that were all spent getting us to the top of said hill.  But can I just say, or can I just write, that the coolest part of doing a negative split was that after the first couple miles of coasting, when I started to pick up tha pace, not a soul passed me!  I spent the last 7-8 miles just passing people left and right.  That was cool.  I was just flying down the Katy Trail until it spit us out right by the American Airlines Center, from there it was a push to the finish around the corner*.

*There were also 5 and 10K races, of which we merged somewhere near the end, but the course and streets were spread out enough, it didn’t matter much.

Finishing Strong Like Bull.

I was pleased with my time of 1:21:55.  At worst I wanted to run 8:30 miles – ended up running 8:12 miles!  I didn’t know what to expect from a 10 mile race, but that was the goal I set before hand.

Anykidoodle, after the race I got to enjoy the free beervezas, but not a single taco!  I waited to long and the lines were too long, and they eventually ran out.  That’s OK tho.  Had a badbutt brunch afterwards with the fams.

So to sum up:  Ran the Taco Race and got the runs!