Thursday, March 23, 2017

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

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