A bit o' the Irish luck

Until recently I was unfamiliar with the fact that the Irish are actually a really unlucky people... Call me stupid (maybe)!

You know, this whole story actually started in a teacher's lounge where I found myself quietly eating lunch during a substitute teaching gig last week. I had my own private little history class right there in the teacher's lounge; I never was that great at history (sigh)!  Anyhow, it was a day or two before St Patty's Day and a couple of teachers were discussing the "Luck of the Irish" and how it means the opposite of what most people think;  It is actually bad luck for which the Irish are famous.  Who knew!? Certainly not me.  I dated a guy who had proud Irish heritage in high school and he certainly didn't explain it to me that way!  This prompted me to do a little research project of my own and I learned this:

Throughout history the Irish have had lousy, bloody, luck. Really. Lousy.  Luck.  I shall not go into details as to bore you with myriad historical examples, but trust me they've had shitty luck. And when they came to America, the reputation and luck followed them.  So over time, if an Irishman (or woman) found success in life, it became known as "lucky" or more precisely the "luck of the Irish" because, quite frankly, the Irish simply were not liked, wealthy, nor successful.

Now what the heck does this have to do with Mird and Vern's running challenge!?  I was getting there... patience grasshopper!

This past weekend was our annual St Patty's Day running extravaganza weekend. Mird informed me it is her favorite running weekend always because St Patrick's Day is her favorite holiday and we always have so much FUN.  She's a natural ginger so it all makes sense!  Remember, last year we did 23 kilometers in 24 hours for the occasion and we met a leprechaun (photo below), visited and ran with some old friends from grade school, drank green beverages and had a jolly good time!  Well, this year we looked to do a repeat of last year.  However, we do have a bit of Irish in our blood and things didn't end up as planned.  I guess it was the Luck of the Irish for us!

St Patty's Day Run Clare MI 2016

Here's how it went down:

First of all, I got a speeding ticket on my way to Miranda's house.

Yes that news deserved a paragraph all its own!  Back in the day, I had quite a reputation for speeding tickets. My license was actually restricted when I was 17 because of my habitual speeding, but I have been ticket free for a very long time so this was very upsetting to me...The speeding ticket kind of set the tone for our little repeat weekend. 

From there, we discovered Friday that while we thought we had registered for the races on Sunday, in fact, we had not!!!! Don't ask how you manage to not sign up for a race that you sign up for because we don't really know.  I do know that beer was involved and we are both lousy accountants! One more thing,  Mird's watch also died a few days prior to all of this. This watch had worked for over 3 years without so much as a missed second, or a need for a battery, or any type of servicing so this was certainly unexpected; looking back, the watch was probably was some kind of premonition for the upcoming weekend, but we didn't understand that at the time.

Aunt Flo arrive four days late on my way to Mird's house which certainly made for a bloody good time (pun intended). To top it off, I leaked all over the place while I ran on Saturday in Clare so it really was a "bloody good time"!  I did place second in my age group which almost made up for the mess; Given that it was icy and slushy conditions, I was thrilled to only be less than a minute away from a new personal best 10k time!  In the end, it was all worth it because I got a fancy medal and my name announced at the award ceremony.  As luck would have it, the medal is covered up by our friend's cute little one, but a picture of our group and the medal is found below!  Mird dressed as a leprechaun which was great because our leprechaun friend from last year was nowhere to be found!

Group mug shot Clare Festival of Races 2017

St Patty's Day Run Clare MI  2017

After all this craziness, we were only about halfway through our repeat weekend! We returned to Mird's to prepare for our voyage east to visit friends, eat dinner and celebrate a 40th birthday.  I am happy to report there were no speeding tickets on this leg of the journey! We had a slumber party with lots of people and little sleeping; The best kind, in my opinion, and we awoke early for our bandit run!  

For those of you who do not run (sidenote: If you do not run, you really should.  I promise your life will be way awesomer if you run!)  Bandit Running is when you run a race, but never register for it. And yes, it's a real thing in the running community.

We decided to become bandits based on the following criteria:

• it would make a cool blog post
• cost of $75 to register since we messed up registering as early birds
• I had already unexpectedly spent $123 on a speeding ticket
• I could make it home in time to watch my daughter's band concert

We decided to forego registration and just run the damn 8k race as a trio of bandits!  Mird was nervous (understandably so) as she had never been a bandit; I was not.  I spent the better part of 2010 and 2011 as a infamous bandit runner around the greater West Michigan area so I am an experienced bandit!  I am probably still wanted in three counties, but who is counting! So we ran like the police were chasing us because hey they mighta been and then we ate breakfast and had coffee with another long lost friend, Mary (no photo available at this time)! 

 Group mug shot Bay City Irish (kinda) Double 

 Two Irish cuties!

The Welcome to Club 40 Hat!  Wear it with pride!

All things considered, it was a splendid weekend. Even though it wasn't quite the repeat of last year about which we had dreamed and the Luck 'o the Irish gave us a "run" for our money, we made a lot of great memories and we will be back next year to try our luck at it again!

PS The Irish luck is following Mird; She found out today that Kenny has a parade and needs a costume for school tomorrow and her microwave, died!

Vern and Mird OUT

Washington D.C. was so damn cool

This whole recent Washington D.C. race gig started because a couple of homeless kittens won the pet lottery and landed themselves at Dominica and Ivar's house just outside Washington D.C.;  I say they won the lottery because Dominica and Ivar don't have kids.  Their pets are their kids and their kids are a bit spoiled.  I've often dreamed of coming back as a dog in their household in my next life!  That would be amazing!  When I learned about their recent adoption of two kittens from a local rescue group, I knew we had to plan a trip to visit.  The aunts needed to meet the new nieces.  Yes it started with those precious and lucky kittens and totally snowballed from there.  The weekend involved an unfortunate gas cap incident involving the police, a post-run interview that may render Ivar FAMOUS in the D.C. running community, forgotten insulin and a wrestling match with my luggage that may land me on youtube! And before we even made it out of Michigan there was an epic 3.5 mile run through the outskirts of the MSU campus during which we even did a vodka bomb at a local pub because we wanted to prove we weren't old! Unfortunately, we are old, but whatever! Oh and we visited the new Sparty statue. Check it out!

Sparty ON!

Vodka Bomb by a couple youngsters!

Now I realize in our conquest to run a race in all 50 states running a race in Washington D.C. doesn't strategically make the most sense.  However, we made this silly challenge up and we are making our own rules for it too so D.C. totally counts as its own locale!  Number 8 to be exact!  Oh and Before we are done with this challenge, there will actually be at least 52 locations because we plan to run the Best 10k in the world which happens to be in Puerto Rico. Why this particular race you may be asking!?

Here's Why:

1. it is in Puerto Rico
2. it's on the last Saturday in February in Puerto Rico
3. my anniversary is the 2nd of March so we can celebrate early!
4. it is the "best 10k in the world!"

5. 10k is one of my favorite distances to run

so we've just gotta do it!

Now that we've cleared that up, I have a little confession...To be completely honest even though D.C. totally counts, we would've done a race in Delaware or Maryland if we could've found one, but as it turns out races are hard to come by  in these particular states in February.  I guess the weather is unpredictable or something; Despite countless hours spent searching for a race in either of those states, the only other two races we could find were a 10-miler that was nestled in an endless bit of hills that was described as, "very challenging for even the most experienced runners".  Further complicating option A was the fact that we needed to join some runclub in Virgina or Delaware in order to run in it.  Option B was a HALF MARATHON that was also located amidst a ridiculous amount of hills and was put on by Snapple.  Now back in the day I did love Snapple, but still a half marathon in crazy hills seemed a bit extreme even for Snapple especially given that 3 of our 5 runners going on this adventure don't actually run. SO...

We did nearly sign up for the runclub to try our hand at 10 miles of hills, but luckily Dominica saved us. For being a self proclaimed "non-runner" she sure knows how to find an AWESOME RACE! In a matter of a day or two of our purchasing plane tickets, she found a race that was:

1. unlikely to accidentally kill any of us 
2. free
3. in a cool location
4. fairly close to their house
5. part of a community of cool runners

 It was absolutely perfect. Lesson learned, Dominica is in charge of finding races from this moment forward! Even I who loathes the 5k distance, had a great time. The proof is in this photo!

February 25, 2017

Fletcher's Cove Washington D.C.

State Number 8

We ate all kinds of extraordinary foods while we visited because Dominica is basically a gourmet chef, completed two puzzles, played a bunch of euchre, spent quality time with those precious VanKittens and did a fair amount of hiking!  It really was a magical weekend!  Then as always, too quickly the adventure was over and we found ourselves at the airport with a few hours to kill awaiting our flight home...

But wait there's more!

Cue the craziest of the three crazy traveling running shoes sisters for a new record level of CRAZY running adventure that is Reagan National airport.  Yes I ran for 35 minutes up and down the A Terminal--trying to improve my finish time with each lap I finished! It was so much more fun than I imagined! Shockingly, nobody stopped me or even talked to me. The longer I ran, the more excited I became about running in the airport!  It was a total adrenaline rush. ADRENALINE RUSH.  Now, I did get a few smiles from elderly people and a few strange looks, but nobody actually said a single word!

One of my favorite things in this world is to take someone to their first organized race (or second since I dragged this crew to a race awhile back in Virginia).  At the finish line, in that victorious moment, there are people realizing they are way more awesome than they ever realized. At finish lines people are full of confidence, adrenaline and joy.  Nobody is grumpy!  After such an accomplishment people are just so alive, happy and energized. Finish lines are one of my favorite places in the world.  And because of these facts, Washington D.C. was just. So. Damn. Cool.

This post is dedicated to Rose and Tulip our new nieces.  Enjoy the good life girls!

Vern out