Monday, December 7, 2009

From the Brandon Half to Mickey's Merry

This is a break away from the Ragnar tale.


Yesterday morning I ran the Brandon Half Marathon. I was not going to do the run, officially, until I was given a comp entry from one of my fellow BRA runners. She works for Driscoll's. You should try their strawberries. I have and they are some of the finest berries in the world. Okay Esther does that count as an endorsement.


I have recently been running faster than I normally run. I PR'd the Ironman 70.3 World Championships in Clearwater last month by almost 2 hours. I ran like a madman, so I heard, during Ragnar all while using McDonald's as fuel. But you will read about that on future blogs. And I PR'd a 5k on Turkey day. So I wanted to try and PR a half marathon. I had not been running much lately and I had Five Guys for lunch on Saturday. Don't you just love that place. Double burger and fries. I mean fries that leave grease stains in the brown paper bags. I take the bags home and use them for kindling on camping trips. I cook the same damn kind of meat on my grill but I can't get my youngest one to eat my burgers. WTH.


Tried to eat good for dinner. Spaghetti and turkey meat sauce. Two or three beeeers. There was football on. Some fresh baked oatmeal raisin cookies. Have you tried the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. I did. Right after the other cookies. Went to bed around....ohhh midnight.


One of the good things about the Brandon Half Marathon is that you can park your car damn near on the starting line. And it is only 20 minutes from my house. So, I just stay in my car and sleep with the heat on until about 15 minutes prior to the gun going off.


It was cold at the start but I felt good. I was shaking like a leaf. People who know me will tell you that I do shiver when it is cold. I have this condition called, "itscoldashellouthere." Had no ipod. Have taken my shuffle to Apple three times. That is another story. No gloves. Wish I did. Hands were cold for a while. Actually the whole race. And we are off. The fast guys are out front. Which is not me. Remember, I was the Captain for Half Nuts.


It was cold but I still took water at every water stop. I remember Tom, one of the fast runners, telling me and others in our group to drink water even though it was not hot out. He gives great advice. I should listen to him more often. Something I did learn. When getting ready to eat GU (carbo gel) in the cold, you should warm the package up in your hands first so it goes down easier. I just read the previous sentence again. If you are not a runner, shame on you.


Anyways, I finished in 1:44:34. I PR'd by about 7 minutes or so. Other runners in our BRA group also had PR's so I congratulate them as well. And the fastest runner was Josh who is a BRA member.


I also discovered a new breakfast treat. A post morning race treat that is. The new Budweiser wheat beer and Burger King's french toast. You dip the french toast in to your beer and enjoy. Much better than the syrup.


Now on to the evening. Mickey's Very Merry Christmas at Walt Disney's Magic Kingdom with the family. This was an annual family event that we had not done for the past three years. The girls seemed to have out grown Disney and all it's magic. Which my bank account surely loves. We all agreed to give it another try this year. Believe it or not, teen girls still get excited about going to Disney World. At least that is what they said even though on the way there one was texting a mile a second and the other was sleeping. Would you believe Disney now charges $14 to park your car. Unless you tell them you are.....no trade secrets.


For those not familiar with how this whole MVMC goes well here is the break down. You have to buy separate tickets for this event. It is on specific dates and is from 7pm til midnight. The park closes at 7pm for all other guests. You are given a wristband and all those without are funnelled to the front and out the gate. Now you have the whole park to yourself. Yeah right. You and 20,000 others. For some reason this year the park was not all that crowded. My youngest one asked me if this was the kind of "change" everyone was talking about.


Too keep this short, fun was had by all. It was very nice to see the kids playing around and having a good time. The part I did not like was when my oldest one was talking about bringing her kids to Disney some day. Hopefully many, many, many, (how do you make an infinite symbol?) years from now.




7 comments:

  1. in the cold, you should warm the package up in your hands first so it goes down easier

    I'm sorry, I know there was more to that post but for some reason I couldn't focus on the blog....Congrats on the PR. 7 minutes??? I am totally fueling with Five Guys!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Awesome job on the PR! I used to eat Indian food the night before races and all summer I PRed with that. Sadly though, that thinking and food has taken a turn for the worst - I am back to pizza (and the occasional oatmeal choco-chip cookie) the night before.
    And if parking was $14 bucks, I can only imagine how much it was to get you and the fam in the for adventure! Have a great week - I'm off to try beer and french toast :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Way to rock that PR Captain!!! And why doesn't it suprise me that your fuel of choice was something ungodly artery clogging?!?! LMAO!

    I keep my Gu in my bra so it's warm but um... well you could keep it elsewhere since you lack a rack. Although leave it to you to make that statement dirty...

    Glad you had fun at Disney, you could've told a girl you were in town. Gees. Screw you too.

    See you next weekend at the Saturday run, I'm skipping over to crash at BoB's.

    P.S. The new header is Epic. Love it!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Great Job with your PR on the half. How did the McDonald's go for the fuel? I know this kid who ate 6-8 cheeseburgers for that purpose. I have seen the advertisements for that bdw lite beer. Wouldn't say I would try it with the french toast sticks but hey wth. Enjoyed reading your post. Have a good one man!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Good post and great new header photo....
    Also, congrats on your PR. But, with girls as beautiful as yours are... you need to run faster in order to chase the boys away at night!
    :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks for the endorsement! But don't think you're getting sponsored for that. I already gave you a free race entry.
    Your writing is hysterical, by the way. I think you'll make a great grandpa!
    Strawberry E

    ReplyDelete
  7. Am totally jealous of what you can eat and still PR AND of your trip to the house of mouse.

    ReplyDelete