I Saw a Real UNICORN on my Run!

I did, I really did, but before I get to that, let’s recap the week.

This week saw some crazy up and down weather, but I took it all in stride – literally (see what I did there?).  It started on Saturday with a hot and humid 10 mile run at around 8:30 per mile pace.

It continued Sunday with a successful yoga practice.

The window don’t lie.

It went on on Tuesday with a morning 4 miler at about 7:40 per mile pace.  Followed by a weight session.

It ran on on Wed with a windy track session.  I went 4 miles with an average pace of 7:04 per mile.  The 400’s are getting faster by the week – most of them around 80 seconds!

If you keep your race timing chip on, you can pretend to race each time you run!

It carried on on Thursday with a weight session followed by a social run.  I ran 3.5 miles at a 7:15 per mile pace.

Boom SHAKA Laka.

It was great to see some old running friends there.  And of course, after the run came the social part where we got to catch up with one another and swap running stories (for some reason my non-running friends don’t want to talk about running all the time).

I was getting in my Zen Zone. (BTW, click any image to enlarge and get a better look)

But what was even cooler to see was a real. life. UNICORN!  The route we ran took us by a few fields of wildflowers.  There were three or four photoshoots going on in said fields.  And one of them was a little girl with a unicorn!  I’m sorry I didn’t have my camera to take a pic, but someone did capture a half human half zebra on the run though…

Centar….Zebtar?

But for reals, the white pony had a sparkly tail and a horn on it’s forehead.  Chances are it was a fake horn that was attached to the horse.  So I did a quick net search and found the local folks who take the unicorn pics.  If you’re interested in taking Unicorn photos, here’s their website.  In the meantime, here’s an example of their work…

This is EXACTLY what I saw (but with a different girl).

But maybe not, maybe it was real.  I’ve written before about my fascination with North Korea.  And it was reported recently that North Korea has found an actual ancient Unicorn Lair.

So who’s to say what’s real and what isn’t.  Life’s more fun when you believe anyway.

I’m a humacorn.

How was your week’s workouts?  Ever see a ‘mythical’ creature?  How long do you leave your timing chips on your shoes after a race?

-Scott

Windy Track Work & N. Korea Marathon

I ran my 2nd track workout of the season yesterday.  This time I did 400’s with a 200 in between each.  It was tough, but good.  What made it extra tough was the wind.  The back straight away and a half turn, I was running directly in to the wind tunnel.

It’s that thing, when the forecast is ‘wind’.

It felt at times like I was running in place.  There’s not much I can do about it though.  This time of year, it’s pretty much windy like that every day.  And I do have a race next week that could have the same wind, so I might as well practice in it, right?

In other news, did y’all see the North Korean Marathon is open to tourists for the first time in history? You can read about it HERE.

Last one home gets sentenced to hard labor.

I’m all for destination races, but this would be crazy!  I’ve always been fascinated by places I’m not usually allowed to visit – aka, Cuba and N. Korea.  Call it a forbidden fruit sort of complex.

If you don’t know, most Americans are not allowed to visit Cuba – our two governments don’t play nice together.  And it’s usually not a good idea to visit N. Korea, because they can get kind of detainy-to-prison-campy with Americans tourists.

Still, I’d like to see these places someday, and I know how running is a great way to see new places.  Maybe they should put on something like the Disney Coast to Coast Challenge between the two countries???

I’m assuming this will be on the race shirts.

Run a race in Cuba, get a medal.  Run a race in N. Korea, get a medal.  Then get a bonus medal for completing the “Cross World Communist Dictator Race Challenge”!

How bout you?  Are you lucky enough to always have the wind at your back?  Would you run in the DPRK?  Up for the Commy Race Challenge?

PS – Don’t forget your daily vote for my video “C”!!!  Only a few days left to vote for “C”: http://www.heb.com/page/offers-contests/earth-day-video-contest

-Scott

 

 

 

 

Disney Kids Race Recap

I’ll get to my recap of the Dopey Challenge Full Marathon soon, but I didn’t want to move on without writing about something else we took part in during the Disney Marathon Weekend.  In addition to the 5k, 10k, 13.1, and 26.2, they also had kids races.  And our just turned 5 year old participated.

His heel kick left the back of his shirt dirty!

It was his 3rd time doing the runDisney Kids race.  Last year he even won his heat of the 100 meter race!  But this year he’s in a new age group.  And the distance doubled to 200 meters.

Last year’s race. I wish I had that form!

I learned form years past to let the pushy over-eager parents take their kids in the first couple heats.  I planned to do the same this year.  The emcees said there would be 4 heats.  I decided we’d wait till the last one.  But after the first 2, they decided to lump everyone still waiting into just one giant (3rd) heat.  This was not a welcome last minute change.  Because of this, we were several people back from the starting line.  It was a mob scene.  And yes, the parents run with the kids, so it was doubly crowded.

Fighting through the crowds (and his oversized sweatpants).

So he was pretty boxed in at the start.  Bummer.  But once he found an opening…he.was.GONE!  You can see it unfold in the video I took:

I was boxed in behind him, so the only way to catch him was to cut through the infield.  It’s shaky, but I think it’s kind of funny.  I caught up to him right as he high-fived Mickey at the finish line!

High Five Mickey!

Oh, and BTW, if he looks sleepy, it’s because he WAS.  He was ready for a nap.  And he had gotten something in his eye, so he kept rubbing it, which made them kind of puffy.  But he’s a trooper.

Post high five.

In the end, he had a good time, and added another medal to his young collection!

Bringin home the hardware (or software, as it is rubber).

And I was happy that he got to be part of this weekend of family running!  Hopefully he’ll continue to race as he keeps reaching new age groups!

Post race with the boy!

And get this, for Christmas he was given a Disney gift card.  And he decided to use it at the Expo to buy a running Mickey doll (with it’s own medal of course).

Medals for everyone!

What do you think about kids races – ever been to one?  Should I add the distance of this race to my 48.6 Dopey total? 

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?