Plano Balloon 5k Recap – Trophies, Balloonies & Selfies!!!

So here’s da ting – I got to race this weekend!!!! It was the Plano Balloon Festival 5k. It went pretty well ~ I think I sent a PR on the way to a 3rd place division finish!

Balloon race, balloon medal, balloon trophy!

I signed up for this race a long time ago, and I’m glad I did – had tons of friends out there this day!

We run. We fun.

I was also glad to run into some of my super speedy friends who I haven’t been able to run with in a while. These two have been inspiring me for a while now – starting a few years ago when we’d regularly meet at the track to try and kill each other with 400’s…

Me and a couple BQ’ers. Maybe I could join them if I got shorter shorts.

It was a VERY humid day. So humid, in fact, that it started raining shortly after the race. Because of the weather they weren’t able to launch the hot air balloons as planned. Bummer, yo! It’s ok doe, I was there to race…and race I did!

And big ups shout out to my boy Tory for taking the following video of some of us during the race. T-dawg is always so supportive of his fellow runners…

I was purdy pleased with my race. I had a great time for me despite the humidity, hills and already running 40+ miles that week.

Official Results: 5k- 21:11 – 3rd in Age Group – 31st Overall (Out of 1945)

Don’t steal my soul, race photographer guy…or my award!!!

I LURVE the awards they gave us – individualized hot air balloon metal wall art hanging thingies…

Division placers…I have fast friends.

After the race, we explored the balloonless festival a bit. And of course, made a spectacle of ourselves…

Not sure what’s happening here.

Oh yeah, I remember ~ someone brought a selfie stick.

I enjoyed the race. I’ve been doing so many hundreds of miles getting ready for the Chicago Marathon that I couldn’t remember what it felt like to go short and fast! I was so glad to see I had gotten faster than when I started marathon training. Funny how that works ~ to get better at running, practice running.

I don’t think our group got enough pictures.

In the end, it was a good time with good peeps. And it was just the little confidence boost I needed after such a miserably hot Texas summer of long slow sweaty miles. Yay, my legs still work!

All smiles after the miles.

And guess what…..the festival also had a half marathon the day after the 5k. And yes, I ran that too. Stay tuned for that recap!!!!

How bout you? Any races recently? Ever go to a balloon festival with no balloons? Did our group take enough pictures (trust me, there’s more I didn’t post here)?

-Scott

The 3rd Annual TNSR Beer Mile – Race Preview

Tonight I get to run a race! It’s the 3^rd Annual Thursday Night Social Run Beer Mile.  This is an unofficial race. It’s not a sanctioned event, but then again, how many Beer Miles are?

I ran this race last year (it was my first ever Beer Mile) and I was fortunate enough to finish in 2^nd place!  You can read my recap of that race HERE.

A trophy, yay!

Oh wait, I forgot to explain what a Beer Mile is. Here’s the breakdown:

1. The clock starts.
2. Everyone drinks a 12 oz beer as fast as they can (it is a race afterall).
3. Run ¼ mile lap as fast as you can.
4. Repeat until you finish four laps/beers.

Last year I finished the Beer Mile in 9:49.  Being that this is a race, I hope to do well and try for a PR.  I’m hoping the experience from last year’s race will help me.  I know not to go out too fast, as pretty much everyone last year who did crashed by the 2^nd lap.  Kind of like a normal race, huh?

~~~Run with your head the first half, run with your heart the second half~~~

Hopefully the track work I’ve been doing will translate to the Beer Mile!

That said, I’m still planning on just having fun with it.  I remember it wasn’t the most pleasant race I’ve ever run, what with all that brew sloshing around in my tummy.  But it should be a blast anyway!  Stay tuned for the recap!

Questions:  Have you ever run a Beer Mile?  Any strategy tips?  Any other advice?

-Scott

PS – Congrats to the USA advancing today in the World Cup!!!!  We got out of the “Group of Death” and we’re on to the knockout stage! I hope we knock someone out! #ibelievethatwewillwin

Pneumonia, World Cup, & Don’t Eat Curry B4 a Run

I mentioned in my last post how jazzed I am for the World Cup to have started.  I am a soccer/football fanatic and this is the best time of the every four years.  But as this tournament started, I reminisced about the last one four years ago.  It was a Heaven & Hell sort of situation.  Heaven because I got to watch pretty much every single match.  Hell because I had gotten pneumonia (hence the reason I got to watch every match – I was near death on the couch).

Now while I’m happy about getting so see so much football, I gotta say, do NOT get pneumonia if you can help it.  It is an AWFUL experience.  But enough about that.

Not the World Cup trophy, but my rec league 2nd place finish last year is pretty good too, right?  Right???

Other than that, it’s been a pretty good week.  Well, except for my run yesterday.  Here’s the dillyo.  I was going to run in the evening with my usual group, but the weather dudes predicted rain, hail, and end of days (BTW it never even sprinkled a little).  So I decided to sneak one in mid afternoon…in 90% humidity…after I ate my homemade curry…didn’t end well.  Haha, please learn a lesson from my mistake.  Don’t do what I did.

It’s all good though, I gotter done.  And that night I was able to finish the week off with a doggy walk slash kiddy bike ride.

He’s constantly turning around to tell me some ‘amazing’ revelation. Keep your eyes on the road kid!

Hope y’all had a good week and will have a great weekend!  I know mine will be full of soccer!!!!

You watchin the World Cup?  You play any other sports?  You ever eat curry before a workout (I hope not)? 

-Scott

Anyway, I

Destination Workouts and Awards

I was in the Texas town of Seabrook for work the past couple days. It’s home to NASA and the Kemah Boardwalk. It’s right on the Gulf of Mexico. Sticking to my training sched, I got up early to run. I love running in new places. You really get to see stuff from a different perspective. This run I got to see the sea.

This was NOT a pedestrian friendly town. Not many sidewalks, busy roads, etc. But I didn’t get run over, so I got that going for me. I also ended up at the commercial seafood selling district. I love seafood, but that place smelled funky! Must be the dumpsters! But it was made up for by the beautiful sunrise views over the water. Awesome.
There were a lot of animals about too. Deer, jellyfish, non jellyfish, and lots of pelicans. In fact they had painted pelican statues all over town. Kind of their mascot I guess.

Anyway, a nice run. I also got a good little workout in in the hotel gym. After though, we had an awards dinner. I’m a TV producer when not running (as part of this conference I taught a class on pre-production). So I got all gussied up and collected our trophies. We work hard on our shows and it’s nice to be rewarded time to time.

All in all, a pretty good couple days. But the travel and excitement and exercise has left me a tad tired. Just landed back in Dallas and off to home to hopefully relax on the couch with the fam and rest up for 6 mile Saturday and 16 mile Sunday. Here we go!
Here’s my question. If you had a mascot, what would it be?

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!

Great Run Opportunity (and Other Stuff)

OK, so on Saturday June 8, we are leading a social run in Allen, TX at 8am.  We are starting/stopping at Pure Movement Dance and Fitness Studio.  One of my cool friends is the co-owner…I know people.  But that’s not necessarily why we’re running from there.  They are also hosting a big health/fitness event that same day.  See the flier below…or is it flyer?

Click on it to make it bigger. Or not, whatever.

I love hanging out with my like minded health conscience friends.  Especially when we’re encouraging others to get fit.  And so as part of this morning, after our run, they are offering us a yoga session by an amazing instructor for only $5.  Pretty cool deal. And if you follow my blog, then you know how important I think yoga is for athletes – especially runners.  Check out my post on it here: Yoga for Runners

If you’re in the area, join us.  If you’re not in the area, get to the area.  Minimum run will be 2 miles, max run is up to you as we are running laps around Celebration Park…the more laps you do, the more mileage.  It’s 1.5 miles around and exactly 1 mile from Pure Movement.  Here’s the course: Saturday’s route

I hope you can join us.

Other than that, I need to make a correction to my last post.  I said I had done 4 videos with Flula.  But I lied.  I had forgotted the very first video I made with him.  It was on a show we used to do called “The Dilly-O”.

Silly show, yes, but it must’ve been working because the series did win Two Emmys!

Fun night that was.

And one more thing I forgot to write about this week.  My soccer team made it to the championship game of our league.  The semifinal went to double overtime, then a double shootout.  I made my penalty shot to help them win.  But in the final, we also went to double overtime and double shootout, and I also made my penalty, but this time we lost.  Oh well, still had fun.

No smiles for second place.

OK, I think that’s it for now.  Keep it fit people!

Peace!