Race Recap: The Beer Mile

So I did my first beer mile.  First off, let me say that this was mostly a fun social race, as opposed to an official one.  The timers were people holding iPhones.  The course was not exactly 1/4 mile, but it was pretty darn close.  And from what I understand, we may not have followed all the rules.  Supposedly you’re supposed to all drink the same beers from their bottles.  Not sure if that is true, but we didn’t do that anyways.  It was BYOB, and most people had Mich Ultra, Miler Lite, or the like.  I had Guinness.  This surprised many people and they said I was crazy, but I saw it as an advantage.  It’s less carbonated than those fizzy light beers, it tastes better when it’s not ice cold unlike those other brews, it has a little less alcohol too, and since it takes time to settle I had them poured into red Solo cups.  Drinking from a cup helped me too cause there’s more surface area for air to touch the beer and help add pressure to help push it out of the cup and into my mouth.  Trust me, I’m a scientist (no I’m not).

I also had a “pit crew” whom I relied on to have the beer waiting for me after each lap.  She not only poured the beers while I was on the previous lap, but could hand them to me – easier than searching for it on a table of a bunch of other beers.

BTW, I guess I need to explain what a Beer Mile is.  You drink a beer, run a quarter mile, repeat until you reach one mile.  I was fortunate enough to come in 2nd place – beating several runners who are much faster than I.  I think my strategy of drinking Guinness helped.  Plus I did a two mile warm up run to get loose.  I ended up finishing in 9 mins 49 secs.  Not bad!

A trophy, yay!

Here’s the breakdown:  Beer one, everyone pretty much chugged em down pretty fast and we were off and running.  My plan was to keep a steady pace and not go out too fast.  Just like any race, there are always the majority of folks who go too fast at the start and struggle at the end.  Negative splitz is the goal!  Indeed people went all out the first lap.  I finished in somewhere near 10th place.  Then came the second beer – all the sprinters were gasping for air and the cold fizzy beers went down very slowly.  I still had control of my breath and was able to down mine pretty quickly.  From that point on I was in 2nd place.  I wasn’t able to catch the super speedy dude ahead of me and nobody else could recover after the first lap to catch me.  I hear there was a barfer or two, and some people had to drop out.  But everyone who competed is still a champ!

It was not an easy race.  Lots of people complained about being hard to run with full bellies.  I lucked out on my 3rd and 4th laps because I was so full I didn’t think I could run anymore, but after a few bouncy steps….BEEELLLCHHH!  Apparently chugging a beer, when you’re already huffing and puffing, traps a lot of air in your belly.  Who knew?  After the burps, I was back to my pace.  Funniest moment came when I was trying to get those burps out – both times this guy next to me kept saying, “It’s coming up!  It’s coming up!”  I’m not sure if he puked or not, but was funny to hear him narrate it like that.

It was an interesting experience, I’ll say that much.  We even made some new friends as a baby shower that was going on at the same place asked if the mama could take her picture with us.  They said we were as much a part of the night as their own people.  I guess we were entertaining to watch.

Our group with the mom to be (hint – she’s not wearing running clothes)

OK, off to the track.  Gotta get faster for the next one!

Holla!

Head for the Cure 5k Review

Sorry for the delay in this review, I’m sure you were holding your breath.  Exhale, it’s here.  This 5k was alright.  There were more people than I expected – over 1000.  The weather was unseasonably cool, though a tad windy, but not too bad.  The course was relatively flat, save a few hills just after mile one.  The course was fairly scenic too, as the last half of the course meandered on a paved trail through the Oak  Point Nature Preserve.  I’d never been there before, and the part of it we ran through was nice.  I’ll have to explore that park some more on future runs.

Takin it to da bridge!

As you can see in the photo, I wore my Flying Pirate 1/2 Marathon shirt.  I was so happy to do so – you see, my flight home from that race resulted in my luggage being lost…for nearly a MONTH!  I finally was able to retrieve it the night before the race, and reunited with some of my fav running clothes, along with my new shirt, I was joyed to put them on for this race!

Hoping the shirt would give me wings too.

Anykitandkaboodle, the combo of the weather, the course, some secret inspiration, having my gear back, and having done some track work, I was able to turn in a decent finish.  I came across at 22:12 – little over 7 minute miles.  I was 4th in my age group and 29th or 30th overall.  This gives me hope, because it’s 20 seconds faster than my last 5k a month ago, and I had been sick the week leading up to this race.  I guess being sick was like a taper?  Taper for a 5k – I wonder if I can sell people on that idea?  Haha!

 

I don’t normally run with my arms crossed – I was reaching to stop my stopwatch at the finish line.

The race is called Head for the Cure because it raises funds for brain cancer research.  I guess it affects more people than I thought because there were lots of signs on the course and people wearing shirts dedicated to who they were running for.  I hope it was considered a success for them.

Anyway, not much more to say…just another 5k.  Yes, that does rhyme.  Until next time, enjoy some extra photos from the race.  Peacey peace!

 

 

 

Abby’s Run For Dandy-Walker Review

So last week I wrote a preview of this 5k race.  Now I’m writing the review.  As I said in the preview, my friend was the race director and the race benefits Dandy-Walker Syndrome.  The race is named for a little girl with the condition, coincidentally named Abby.  She was at the race, that was cool.

At the start. In a crowd.

The 5k took place in Frisco, Texas.  I’ve run quite a few races in Frisco, and I’ve spoken to quite a few of the race directors from those races.  From what I gather, the City isn’t always too cooperative with the race organizers and don’t like closing roads.  That’s the reason why so many of the races in town include multiple laps, 180 degree switchbacks, etc.  I’m assuming that’s why this race was a two lapper with one switchback.  I normally don’t like it when you have to run multiple laps because that means halfway through the race you have to pass by the finish line.  That always seems like such a tease!  But this race I hardly noticed it because at that point two people had caught me and I was trying to hold them off (I did!).  And I didn’t mind the switchback because it let me see how close the runners behind me were.

At the finish. All alone.

Why did it matter how close they were and why did I want to fight off other runners?  Because I wanted to do well in this race since I knew so many people involved with it and because I had lots of friends and families there.  I was lucky enough to finish officially 3rd overall and 1st in my age group!  Technically there was a friend of mine who beat me, but he was wearing another injured friend’s bib, so I guess his time didn’t count cause he’s not listed on the official results?  I still count it as finishing 4th for me.

Abby’s Run with Scott’s Finish places.

To be fair, it wasn’t an extremely competitive field.  This is only the second year for this race, and they’re still trying to make it grow, but talking to some of the organizers, they said they were very pleased with the turnout as it was waaaay more than they had last year.  I hope it can continue to grow!

And I was glad I ran a smart race.  I didn’t go out too fast like some others did who I later passed.  And I was able to be smart when we were running face first into the extremely windy wind!  I had done a warm up with my friend Brian, who won the race, and we previewed the course and strategized where to conserve energy and where to let it fly.  I stuck to the plan and it paid off!

Some of our group. We brought home some hardware!

I think they did a great job with the whole event.  It started with a one mile fun run.  And they had some trainers out there warming people up.  They also had a whole village set up with sponsors tents and activities for kids!  That was a cool thing that you don’t see much – a whole section devoted to keeping kids entertained.

But the coolest thing was how this race benefits a great cause.  And I was VERY proud to accept my medal for winning my age group because they were hand made by some of the children who are affected by Dandy-Walker.

I’ll treasure this one fo shizzle.

Each medal is unique and mine had a cool painting design on it.  I wish I knew who the kid was who made it so I could thank him/her.  Maybe next year!

 

The Last Place Finisher

So last night we had a really successful social run.  Prolly around 100 peeps.  Plus lots of sponsors, foods, beers….even free massages!  I felt pretty good during the run – cruised along around 7:45 per mile for 3.5 miles.  But more importantly, got to hang out some really cool folks on a cool evening.

We tri hard to fit everyone in our pics.

Prolly the last run I’ll do before Sunday’s 5 mile race.  Too Cold to Hold won’t be too cold I hope, but just cold enough to get a good pace going.  After the heat and humidity during the Disney Marathon, I’m really looking forward to running a race in cooler Texas temps.  Never thought I’d say that.

I’ll fill y’all in on the race come Monday.  But for now I just had one other runner thought running through my mind.  After the Disney Marathon I stretched, had a snack, took some pics, changed clothes, rested, chit chatted, and eventually we made our way into Epcot to get some runners’ lunch, or runch.  But on the way in, we noticed there were people still finishing the race.  We knew we had a friend walking it and decided to wait for him.  We didn’t know where he was, but the race was already well past the 7 hour time limit and there were still folks doing their darndest to finish.  That was something to see.

I’ve never watched the very last runners of a race before.  To watch them giving everything they had just to finish was inspiring.  Most were walking.  Many not in the best of conditioning.  Prolly all were in considerable pain.  Some had ice bags strapped to their ailing knees, hips, shoulders, etc.  But they kept on.  Some were merely strolling, but some were trying to run.  So we cheered them on.  It’s easy to cheer for the people who finish first, but more often than naught, the ones in the back are who really need the cheers.  We called them by name if we could read their bibs.  We showed them the medal they are about to get.  We tried to help inspire their finish, but in reality, they inspired us.

We did eventually see our friend, and he was thrilled for our support.  After all, not many people were left to cheer nearly 8 hours after the race began.  We stayed till the last runner passed us.  The Disney crew shortly behind her picking up the barrier cones that lined the race course.  I don’t remember her name, but I’m glad we saw her on the way to finishing.

One of the funniest, but also cruelest signs I saw someone holding along a race course was, “The Kenyans finished half an hour ago.”  True, the first to cross the line of the Disney Marathon finished 5 or so hours before the last participant.  But they both did it.  So did all those others in between.  Good on us all.  Good on everyone who gives it a go.

Peace and running grease.