Running Margaritaville & NRDD (National Running Day, Duh)

I’ve been absent from these blog parts, but not by choice. As I often do, I wrote some posts & saved the drafts for future publishing. But when I logged in next, they were GONE! All that genius, lost forever. Sorry, world.

So lemme ketcheweup…Buffett Day was a wild success, like always.

Some of the SFW highlights.

This is my abfab fave day of the entire year. I try to explain it to people who’ve never been, but I’m learning that it’s indescribable. No matter how much I sell it, people who reluctantly finally show up to a tailgate always look around wide-eyed and say, “I had no idea it was like this! I wish I knew! This is awesome!!!”

We see Capn’ Jack Sparrow every single year.

Everyone seems to assume it’s a bunch of geriatrics sitting in lawn chairs drinking green tequila drinks. Everyone shouldn’t assume so much.

I almost wore this same thing.

Every year it’s like a competition to out-do everyone else creatively-tropically.

Mermaids get thirsty too.

And everybody is so chill – no politics, no drama, no greed…everyone shares everything (especially bevvies).

Shotski!

Making friends around a neon octopus.

This year got a bit cray cray. They stopped enforcing the strict parking rules – so anyone and everyone was setting up canopies, boats, etc. wherever they darn well pleased.This really condensed the space and it felt like one big back yard. Love it!

Caught taking a pirate lady selfie. I need that leg chalice.

Another thing that’s changed over the years is my Buffett crew. We had a huge regular group (not talking bathroom habits). But over the years most of them have faded away. Kind of sad, but c’est la vie dansante.

Buffett4Life friends and a svelte merman.

But like in regular life, most of these people have been replaced with runner friends. I still miss my old crew, but not much I can do if they don’t even respond to invites. It’s all good, runners be crazy, yo!

Runner friend unicorn and a zebra lady.

Someone let us drive their land boat.

Free lap dances from “pretty mike”.

I welcomed several runner friends to the Parrothead phlock.

And for those of you paying attention, why yes, that is my Key West Half Marathon race tech tee under my ultimate party Hawaiian shirt.

Perfect shirt for a perfect day.

And here’s a pro tip: Many people just come for the party, but for those of us who like his music and enjoy the concerts, don’t buy tickets in advance. You can always get some for free/cheap at the tailgate from other parrotheads. My dad and I got tickets for $10.

Boom-shaka-laka.

And I’ll leave it at this – one of the newbies who showed up posted this on her facebook page:

“Soooo…yesterday was my first time at a Jimmy Buffett tailgate party, and it’s taken a good 24 hours for me to mentally recover from what I witnessed there. There were things I simply cannot unsee. And I can’t wait until next year to do it all over again!”

OK, back to running. I’m sure everyone did something for National Running Day. Me was no different. I met up for a local running store’s social run followed by free breakfast tacos!!!

Miles and Smiles!

I got to see a lot of old running friends. It was great! And I’ve got some more good running news, but you’ll have to wait for tomorrow for that…I try to keep these posts more visual than wordy, and I see my word count is growing. Till next time!

How bout you? Anything special for NRD? Can you tell we had fun this week? Are you intrigued or frightened of Buffett tailgates based on my pics?

-Scott

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