Snow Won’t Let Me Run…Me Hate Snow!

I just ain’t been myself lately. Last week I was sick and  so I had to miss some runs. This past week the weather really went south and so I had to miss some runs. Needless to say, I wasn’t jumping with joy.

Before I go further, you should know that I grew up in Ohio. So I’ve had my fill of cold yucky snowy winters. Been there, run that…

One time in high school the newspaper photog caught our track team training in the ever-present cold (I’m the one with the bandana face)

Now I wasn’t completely all humbug about it, mind you. In fact, we did take the opportunity to teach the kids how to make snowballs and snowangels.

Any time you can add violence to an activity, the boy will like it.

She looks about as thrilled as I was.

But after the novelty wore off (about 45 minutes), the kids were over the cold wet stuff as much as I was. But that didn’t make it go away. Nope, freezing temps kept the roads icy. I can’t run on ice. It was so bad, that they had to cancel a big race over the weekend…kind of. The Cowtown 5k, 10k, 13.1, 26.2, & Ultra was scheduled to go down, but they had to cancel all but the 13.1 due to icy roads. Bummer.

Yuck.

I did however, make it to yoga class. I was one of a handful who braved the elements. I saw a running friend in class, and we talked about how we both felt ill from not being able to run. I get it ~ if you are used to doing something every day, and then suddenly stop for a couple weeks, you’re going to feel off.

I feel like I’m about to go cray cray. I’m not missing another day. I don’t care what’s out there, I’m hitting the roads.

In the mean time, I’ve been comforting myself the best way I know how. With tacos…

Vegetarian tacos will warm me up.

We do what we gotta do, right?

How bout you? Weather, illness, etc. affect your workouts lately? Love or Hate the snow/cold? Who else is thankful for tacos in desperate times like these?

-Scott

Sad Stuff, Happy Stuff, & Runspiration

Sad stuff: Today in the States is always a one for reflection. It’s 9/11. That was a sad day. Made even sadder through the fact that at the time I was a producer for a network that made training videos for first responders. I knew a lot of firefighters very well.

Years ago at a shoot. I had to get geared up for safety (and for fun).

Happy stuff: Many years later I was flown to NYC by a firefighter friend to make a video about the 10 year anniversary of 9/11. That was an amazing experience. We got to meet some great people from NYFD and shooting some cool stuff around the city.

Brooklyn in da house. Takin it to the bridge.

Fast forward a couple years and I got to produce another video about 9/11. I was also able to incorporate footage we shot in NYC. I’m really proud of this video (it even won an Emmy). Give it a watch if you have a few minutes HERE.

More sad stuff: I just learned that a old friend from high school has passed away from cancer.

He was a senior when I was a freshman. I always looked up to him because he was like all-state or something in Track, Cross Country, and Swimming. I also thought of him a lot because his freshman year of college he had an unfortunate incident which left him as a quadriplegic.

Brad

Happy stuff: It never slowed him down. He was always living life to the fullest and inspiring others. You can read his obituary HERE.

He would even come to our high school track meets in his wheelchair and cheer for us. Can you imagine a former champion runner, who was just permanently assigned to a wheelchair, instead of retreating from watching others run, but rather seeking them out?!? Amazing.

Some of my HS friends have been going on tribute runs this week and making makeshift memorials.

From a friend’s Facebook page.

I have many forms of inspiration, but to this day, there was nothing more of a “runspiration” than seeing him sitting behind the fence yelling encouragement. I still think about that on runs sometimes.

Me in high school.

OK, I hope I balanced enough happy stuff in with the sad. If not, then here’s a bunch of gifs of dudes getting hit in the privates: Enjoy (only if you’re immature).

How bout you? Do you love NYC? Any runspiration stories? Did I balance the sad/happy enough?

-Scott

Robin Williams, Running, & Photos from My First Job

I usually don’t give much mind energy to the news of a passing of a celebrity.  I did though, about Robin Williams.  I’ve been a fan since I was a little child and was watching Mork & Mindy.  I even had a pair of those crazy suspenders that he would wear.

I wasn’t old enough to know what suspenders did, but I still wore them.  (Note-I’ll check old photo albums later to see if there are any pics of me wearing them)

Judging by all the social media posts and what’s in the news, everyone seems to have been moved by his passing.  He brought a lot of joy and entertainment to a lot of people.  Even running sites were posting about him…

From his high school track days.

I knew he was an avid cyclist, but I didn’t know he had been a big runner too.  He even ran the same events as me in high school – 400 & 800.  They said he ran a 1:59 half mile and a 52 second quarter mile.  He would have beat my by about 1-2 seconds in each race.  He certainly had talent everywhere in his life.

He even talked about running in some of his comedy bits – here’s his thoughts on running marathons:

I will mainly remember that time when I worked as a projectionist at a movie theater in Ohio.  While there, both Mrs.. Doubtfire and Alladin were out in theaters.  So I got to watch them over and over while on the job.

Hello ladies.

Still rockin the bow tie.

Sometimes I would sneak into the back of the theater when I knew a particular funny scene was coming up…just so I could listen to the room full of strangers howling with laughter together.

So I am sad about this.  But I am going to go back and watch his movies again, which will make me happy. – Nanoo Nanoo –

How bout you?  Did the news affect you?  Any good memories?  What was your first job?

-Scott

Man Panties & My New Teen Runnin Besties

After I saw the last crazy search term that lead to my blog, I decided to check those stats a little more regularly.  Welp, I got another one…or, make that two.

I’m pretty sure I’ve only written posts on 50% of those topics.

I swear I keep my blog totes SFW, so I’m not sure how these types of blue searches end up at me.  I swear, I’m innocent! 😉

Anyhoodle, I’m pretty sure the one looking for nude runners came across my blog because of THIS POST.  But I don’t think whoever came upon my blog looking for man-panties found what they were looking for.  Sorry bro.

In other news…Apparently school is getting ready to start round these parts.  I know because I saw some youngins on my mornin runs this week.

In my part of town, I’m lucky if I see ONE running sole (see what I did there).  But when I arrived at my usual park the other day, I was excited to see a bunch of people out running!  And as I got closer to them, I realized they were a high school co-ed cross country team out for a training run.  Hey kids, I ran CC and track in high school too!  See?!?

TBT.

I was running ‘upstream’ on the trail, so I passed by the entire team.  At first I was a little worried that they’d think of me as the creepy old guy.  They’d be right.  But a curious thing happened….a few of them said their hellos to me, and then a couple gals said, “Nice job!”

It took me off guard.  But when I regained my composure, I said the same thing to the next HS runners I passed.  They replied, “Thanks, you too!”

I no longer weep for the future.*  The youth are alright alright alright.**

Our interactions left me with a feeling of having some new besties.  And I know this will get me future weird search results to my blog, but yes, they are teens.

So I was very excited on this morning’s run when I came to the park and saw all the cars and water bottles.  “Yes, my friends are here!”  Unfortunately, they were already off in the distance and I never caught up to them.  I wonder if they missed me too.

How bout you?  Ever get a running lift when you come across others?  Did you run in H.S.?  Are you here because you need man-panties?

-Scott

*Bonus points if you get this movie reference.

**Triple bonus points if you get this one.

Dopey Meet-Ups!

I love how that now-a-days pretty much all my friends are so active.  It always amazes me that I can go to a race, or just go on a training run, and I’m almost guaranteed to “run into” someone I know.  I like that.  It was no different when I traveled half way across the country for a race.  At the Disney Dopey Challenge, I got to meet-up with a few peeps.

If you missed my recaps of the races, you can see them here:  5k, 10k, 13.1, 26.2

First off, these aren’t really reunions, but traveling with me was our boy and my moms.  The boy was doing the Kid’s Race for the 3rd time.

Collage credit goes to my mom. She got all artsy recently.

My moms was doing the Dopey Challenge too.  She only started running a few years ago, and hadn’t run a full marathon yet, but she wanted to make this happen!

Traditional pre-race family photo.

And of course, my sis.  She lives in Orlando, FL so of course we saw her.  Also, her and her roomie let us crash at their crib (I’m so hip), so that was groovy (see).  And if you’ve followed along, then you know that she ran the Dopey too!  We even ran the whole half marathon portion together.

Sibling photo op.  The castle photo bombed us.

Many of you asked how my mom and sis did, and I’m here to tell you that they both finished!  My sis came across the full marathon line a little after me and we reunited when she passed by me stretching next to the medical tent.

With Sis before the marathon. We looked much better here than afterwards.

After we cleaned up, we went into Epcot to look for our ma.  We bought a rose with a Mickey Mouse in it to give to her.  Our plan was for the boy to hand it to her as she passed so she could cross the finish line with it.  All we had to do was wait.

While waiting, we cheered on all the other runners.  And we saw my sister’s friend and cheered for him!  He had met us each morning (he was Dopey too) before the races and served as our official pre race family photographer.

Pre one of the races with my sis’ friend.

Then we finally saw our ma!  We yelled at her to come over so we could hand her the rose, but get this…she blew us off!!!  Haha!  She literally waved us off and kept going.  Everyone around us thought that was pretty funny too.  They said it was comical that we had been waiting there for her, and she was not interested in stopping.

The boy said he was looking “stylish”.

Now I know how it is in a marathon, and I’m sure at that point in the race she just wanted to finish, but it was still funny to us.  Anyway, we gave her the rose a little later.

You can see the rose on the ground next to her. Don’t marathons look fun???

Another mom collage.

Another meet-up I had was with a friend from high school…who I hadn’t seen since high school.  We ran track together at our Ohio high school, but now he lives in Hawaii.  Not a bad gig if you can get it.  Anyway, he was doing the Dopey too.  I actually bumped into him in my coral before the 5k and we ran the whole way together.

That’s him next to me (he’s in the kilt).

We would see each other before and after each race.  It was cool to catch up.

Representing the mean streets of our hometown – Westerville, Ohio.

I had another long time reunion.  Now I must preface this with a short fun fact – also in high school, I used to travel the East coast competing in (mostly) hip hop dance competitions.  My sis went to a dance school, and I just kind of fell into it.

National championships in Myrtle Beach. I know you’re jealous of my mighty dancing shoulder pads.

So, one of the gals I used to dance with now lives in Florida and her and her husband were running the marathon.  After they finished (PR’d!!!) we met up for some post race re-hydrating.

We had to refill our carb levels somehow.

I hadn’t seen her in a long long time, so that was awesome!

Another meet-up I had was with a fellow blogger.  Danielle over at Live, Run, Grow.  There were many that I wanted to run into, but I was only able to find this one.  And here’s how: before the Dopey she had blogged her race costume – Newsies.  After the 10k, I saw a group of Newsies, and knew it must be her.  So we had a brief meet-up.

Virtual friends meet! We take life very seriously.

That’s a great tip from her – post  your race costumes before hand so people looking for you can find you!  For you other blogger friends who were there, know that I was looking for you, and I’m sorry we weren’t able to meet up.

So there are the running reunions I had at the Dopey Challenge.  So cool!

How bout you?  Ever run into old/new friends at races?  Any surprise get togethers?

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?