The Running Dead & The Armadillo Alive

Since I’ve upped my game a few weeks back to running 6 days a week, I’m a little more tired. Funny how that works. Add to that the Texas heat, which forces me to wake up before the sun has a chance to be fully erect in the sky.

That early I’m usually half asleep when I start my runs. So I kind of feel like a zombie – The Running Dead.

From a recent Halloween. I’m a zom-bee, get it?

Also, I gotta say, our town is pretty much overrun by bunny rabbits. On any given run, I’ll probably pass by 30+ of the little carrot eaters. No different this morning…But this time they brought a friend.

As I rounded a corner I could see a couple rabbits up ahead next to the path I was on. But one of them was bigger. As I got closer, I could tell it wasn’t a hare, but it was too dark to make out exactly what it was. I hoped it wasn’t a small bobcat.

Stolen from a friend. These cool cats are around here too.

To be safe, I made some loud grunting noises and clapped my hands. Normally that scares them off (and gets me sidways glances from neighbors). But this animal was giving zero F’s. It paid me no mind (too bad cause zombies eat brains).

Fearing it might be a rabid raccoon (yes, we have those here this summer – and yes, they go up to humans when rabid), I moved off the path. But then I saw what it was – an Armadillo! He/she was digging for grubs to eat.

I still kept my distance because they have sharp claws, but it was cool to see one alive. Usually when I see one, it’s roadkill. I also didn’t get too close cause she/he wasn’t as fun loving as the ones I see in local bars.

Yes, they sell these in stores here.

This wasn’t as cool as the time I saw a real unicorn on a run, but it was still kewl (my street lingo is totally hip).

How bout you? Seen any different animals recently? Are you a morning person? Would you party with an armadillo?

-Scott

Runs (Long & Social) + Yoga (With Zombie Mannequins)

The weekend was another busy one.  It basically started with the weekly social run.  The run started/finished t at a very cool Tex-Mex joint that is always very friendly to our group.  I was glad to see my friend Pepsi show up (yes, her real name) as I knew we could pace each other.  We ended up going between 3-3.5 miles at 7:20ish per mile pace.

The photographer always has to photoshop himself into the pic. Haha. Pepsi’s next to me in purple. (click to enlarge)

On Saturday, I did my long run.  I decided to go 10 miles for my first double digit mileage in a few months.  It was warm and sweaty, so I guess that means I’m going to have to start getting up earlier as the Texas summer is coming.  Good news is that my recent speed work seems to be helping as I ran the 10 miles at an 8:20ish per mile pace.

BTW, am I the only ones who think about our running and/or blogging friends around the world who we also know are running a workout or race at the same time?  This morning my mind wandered a bit to our blogging friend Salt, who I knew was running her first 20 mile distance.  I hoped she was doing well, and I’m sure she was!

Anyway, on Sunday I met some of my other running friends for yoga at Lululemon.  It was an interesting practice.  It was the first time that I’ve ever been in the corpse pose at the end and the instructor didn’t tell us when to stop and get up.  She left it up to us (without telling us that’s what she was doing).  Looking back, I wish I would’ve just laid there on the floor for a long time – like, even after they opened the store – strictly for comedy.  Oh well, next time!

My dead-eyed twin and I tried on headbands after class.

How bout you?  Ever run with someone who you know will push you (not literal)?  Any weird interesting yoga classes?  Ever think of other runners when running?

-Scott

17 Mile Run and Emmy Anticipation

Since I had to rearrange my run Disney Dopey Challenge training schedule this week, that meant I had to do my long run of 17 miles early on Friday before work.  That meant I had to get up pretty darn early.  But I kind of liked it.  I got to run in a part of town I normally don’t because of high auto traffic.  But there were not many cars on the road when my feets hit the streets.  It was kind of cool running through a normally bustling area, that’s temporarily all quiet and asleep.

It was also somewhat cool this morning – temps in the 40’s!  I went out with shorts, tech tee, gloves, and a headband to keep my earsies warm.  I must say, the temps must’ve helped, because the 17 miles seemed relatively easy.  I could’ve kept going.  And my pace increased as I went.  Nice!

I also ran through a part of town I had never run through before – “Why not?” I figured, I’ve got to keep adding miles anyway.  It took me through a new (to me) park that I got to explore the trails of.

It also took me down a dirt road which ended at an old graveyard.  The cemetery was built in 1850 and lots of the grave markers were from around that time.  It’s in an isolated field still to this day.  Now keep in mind that the suburb of Dallas that I now live was nothing more than farm land and a whore house (seriously) until about 15 years ago when the population and construction exploded (they quickly kicked out the cat house).  Back in the 1850’s there couldn’t have been more than a handful of settlers in this area, trying to hack it on their own (and avoid Comanche raids).  I paid my respects and moved on.

All in all, a pretty glorious run!

At Disney’s Emmy display after the marathon in January.

Now I can enjoy the Emmy Gala tomorrow without worrying about trying to squeeze in a run!  Some of you have been asking, so here’s the deets:  The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences has a few regional chapters in the USA.  Texas is so big, it has it’s own – The Lone Star Chapter.  So this is a regional competition.  Most of the winners are from the local PBS, ABC, NBC, CBS, Univision, Telemundo, etc. etc. etc. networks.  Every once in a while, one of us smaller guys gets a win.  I’m lucky to have several nominations, and four actual Emmy’s with my name on them.  This year, we’re nominated for five!  We could come home with anywhere from zero to five.  You never know when it’s up to judges.

Please sir, may I have another?

Anyway, here’s a couple of the ones that we have nominated this year.  In this first PSA I actually play a runner, but please don’t critique my form as I was extremely stiff from PR’ing in a Half Marathon the morning of the shoot.  You may also recognize my quirky style of writing in the voice over script…

The other video I’ll share with you is one I’m very proud of.  I used to produce training videos for firefighters and paramedics, so I’m glad to still be able to work with them from time to time.  For this video, we shot some of it in Texas and also utilized some footage I had shot in New York City at Ground Zero…

If you can’t wait until my blog recap of what went down, then follow me on the tweeter as I’m sure to be updating it during the Gala.

They’ll also be streaming the event live on their website, which I have linked earlier in this post.

In the meantime, please send good vibes our way!!!

What about you?  What special plans do you have this weekend?  When was the last time you got dressed up?  Any long runs? 

Halloween Run and Costumes

I’ve mentioned it before, but I love Thursdays.  It means I’ve finished another work week’s worth of workouts (yea, rest day tomorrow!).  Today I was up early to run 4 miles, then a weight session this afternoon.  Is anyone else running in the early morn or the evenings freaked out a little this time of year?  I run the same streets as the rest of the year, but with all the spooky decorations in the yards, I end up doing quite a few double takes.  Luckily though, all the skeletons, zombies, and ghouls turned out to be fake and not real.

This Thursday happens to be my favorite holiday – Halloween!  I love the challenge of coming up with a creative costume.  This year though, I haven’t had a lot of time or brain effort to come up with a good one.  We’ll see what happens tonight though.  I’m sure I’ll recap tomorrow.

But for now, I picked a few of my favorites from over the years and thought I’d share…

The Zom-bee. Get it?

The Drag Queen Bee. Or Prom Queen Bee.

The most interesting Scott in the world.

The colonel. The bucket doubled as a beer cup.

The Geisha Boy

The touristy part of a city’s robot street performer.

Flamboyant Fiedel Castro.

The Guitar Hero

Hawaiian Punch

Alright, alright, alright. Matthew McConaughey from Dazed and Confused (Wooderson)

So there you go.  Some more creative than others.  My fave is the McConaughey one – it looks simple, but it took a TON of work to put it together.  It paid off though, I won two costume contests that year!

What about you?  What are you going to be this year?  What was your all time fave costume?  Curious – Which of mine do you like the best?

Morning Runner = Zombie

I am not a morning person at all.  Never have been.  I still don’t like it when people talk to me when I first wake up, and I usually don’t respond to them.  Jerky, I know.  But it takes me a while before my mind and body feel right. I feel like a zombie some mornings.  Which reminded me of a funny scene from one of my fave movies.  It’s the first shot in the trailer for Shaun of the Dead, where you think he’s a zombie, but he’s really just waking up:

That said, I’ve been getting up early to run for a few years now.  It’s pretty much a necessity in Texas.  It’s so fargin hot out during the day, and it’s still hot during the morning, but not quite as hot.  I’m still disgustingly sweaty after my run and have to let my clothes dry out for a day before they can go in the hamper.  BTW, one of the ways to know if you’re a runner is if you have two hampers – one for regular clothes, one for workout gear.

But running in the morning has other advantages that I do enjoy.  Most notably, you get the workout out of the way, and have the rest of the day to do whatever.  It is funny though that for me, the morning workouts always seem like they happened on another day.  Sometimes I’ll forget about them until I go up a flight of stars later on and wonder why it was more difficult than normal, “Oh yeah, my legs are tired from the run earlier.”

I do also enjoy the quiet in the mornings.  Less people up and about, so less traffic and noise.  Though now that school’s back in session, it’s less so.

Another advantage is getting to see the sunrise.  I don’t take my phone on runs, so you’ll probably never see a picture here, but I do see some pretty spectacular ones.  Especially in the park near my house that has a lake-pond.  It’s cool to see the sunrise reflecting in it.

And I do enjoy the times we get breakfast afterwards.

It’s also good to get the metabolism into gear first thing too!

Short story: One morning I was up early to run and must’ve checked in on social media cause a friend of mine who owns a bar/grill commented that she was just going to bed from working all night.  Which reminded me of a lyric from one of my fave singers, Mr. Jimmy Buffett:

“These days I get up about the time I used to go to bed.” – Coast of Carolina

It’s true.  I may not like it, but it’s happening.  And there are plenty of advantages to doing so.  But until I become a morning person, don’t talk to me right away.  I’ll just answer you with silence or grunts.

Wildlife Run

Unlike most people, I like to run in scenic places.  Problem is that I live in a suburb of a city and it’s not very scenic.  So I try to run in parks whenever possible.  Occasionally I’ll run at Arbor Hills Nature Preserve.  I like it there as there are both paved and non paved trails.  They wind all over and there are endless possibilities for routes.  Also, there are usually lots of other folks out there being active too.  Only thing is that it’s a nature preserve, so there are wild animals out there.  I have no problem with that, but I will tell you one thing – it keeps you on your toes.

There have been several times I’ve been out there running where I’ve had to jump over a snake on the trail.  That’s freaky, but that adrenaline keeps you running, I tell you!  After you jump over a snake, every single stick and root on the ground looks like another snake in my mind!

A couple of times I’ve been there either early in the morning or in the early evening when it’s dark out.  There are no lights on the trails, and if there’s no moon out, it can be hard to see what’s around you.  But what is freaky deaky is that you can hear animals scurrying about.  Chances are most of them are rabbits, but there could be bobcats, coyotes, snakes, or even mountain lions (I’ve been told).

I tell you this because in each of those experiences, I definitely picked up my pace.  I read a Matthew McConaughey story one time where he recommended running in perceived dangerous locations to keep your adrenaline pumping and your feet moving.  Let me tell you, it works.

This is all on my mind because last night I was running through a park near my house and I came upon a wild bobcat.  The sun was setting and it was getting dark.  I was on a paved trail that went through a wooded area.  I saw a few rabbits take of frightened into the woods as I startled them.  That was jumpy enough for me as I didn’t see them until I was right on top of them.  But then, I turned a corner and apparently startled a bobcat that was on the trail right in front of me.  It shot off into the woods.  But I could see it’s glowing eyes looking at me from the woods.  I didn’t know what to do, so I stopped.  I decided not to continue on that path as the bobcat could be up ahead.  Luckily there was another path to my right, and I took it.  The rest of the run though, I was looking over my shoulder to see if it was behind me.  I know that I scared it more than it scared me, but still.

Don’t get me wrong, it was cool seeing one in the wild, but freaky.  And I definitely picked up my pace a bit to get out of the wooded area as soon as I could.  I also made it a point to make loud noises the rest of that portion of my run, hoping that it would warn them I was coming and hopefully they’d be gone before I got there, if that makes sense.

So there you go, if you want to run faster than you are, just put yourself in a scary situation.  Most of the fear is going to be all in your head, anyway.  I’ve actually heard of an app that puts zombie grunts, footsteps, etc. in your ipod when you’re running.  They noises gradually get louder and more frequent until you’re at a sprint, then it calms down and starts over again.

Something to think on.