Who Am I?

I am an avid runner and have been running since I was 15 years old. I began running low to medium distances while on my high school track team, running the 800 meter and 1600 meter races (I was a sub 5 miler and a 2 minute 800 runner). In addition to the track team, I also joined the cross country team. After high school I still wanted to run and decided to start doing road races. I have probably ran a couple hundred 5k races (16.29 PR)along with many 10k's as well. In 2009 I decided to step up my game and try to tackle my first marathon. I will be honest; the only reason I did this was because my father ran a few and I wanted to show him that I could do what he did. I trained poorly for my first one and regret it. If you are going to run a race, train like you want to win. I still continue to run marathons and other distances as well, and every race is a chance for me to better myself.
I started this blog to hopefully communicate with other runners and to shed any knowledge I may have about the sport that can help other runners. I believe running is the best sport and can be a great stress reliever. I encourage all runners to spread the word of our sport and show people why running is so good and why the community of runners has such great people. You can follow me on twitter @byrne1324 or find me on facebook- Shaun Byrne

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Am I That Person?

      Growing up I would always tell my parents “when I grow up I am not going to be like you”. I didn’t mean this in a bad way by any means, to this day I still look up to my father. What I meant was I am not going to be one of those people who hears newer music and says it is garbage, and my generation had better music. I didn’t want to be the person who looks at younger generations, judging them and making comments like “if you are the future leaders of the world we are screwed.” I told myself I would change with the times and always be that person who was up on the new fads. Have I become that person that I said I wouldn’t be?
       A lot of my days at work consist of driving, therefore I listen to the radio. I have to tell you when I hear the music that is on the radio these days I want to rip the radio out and toss it out the window. Now I am no music critic by any means but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that music has went from having meaning in the lyrics to finding one sentence that sounds good and throwing a beat behind it. Example “Turn down for what”, pay attention to this song and you will realize that they repeat the same thing for the entire song. My wife and I constantly will have friendly arguments over whose generation has better music. I was born in 79 and got to experience the 80’s. She was born later in the 80’s and remembers more of the 90’s. I grew up a mainly listening to hip-hop, and if you know old school hip-hop to today’s rap, there is a huge difference. Back then most of the songs had a meaning and they told a story with the words. Today I don’t have a damn clue what they are talking about. What’s even funnier is I have started to appreciate the songs I made fun of my parents for liking. When we would go on long trips and the Beatles would come on I would cringe, now I can listen to them and I think it’s not that bad. Have I become that person?

       All my life I have been active in sports. Soccer, baseball, track, and cross country were some of the sports I played growing up. You played the game or ran the meet and at the end there was a clear winner and a clear loser. If you lost you usually walked away sad and told yourself, we will get them next time. If you won you relished in your victory until your next game. It blows my mind when I go watch my nephew play a sport and I ask my sister what is the score and she replies “I don’t know, they don’t keep score”. What the hell is this? All of a sudden we have to worry about whose failings are going to get hurt when they lose. I don’t know who came up with this idea, but its horseshit. In life you are going to fail a lot, what defines you as a person is how you bounce back. Teaching kids everyone is a winner is wrong in my opinion. Another thing about sports when I was younger watching games I would tell my dad “so and so is the best player ever”. He would laugh and name someone I didn’t know and tell me how the game has changed and how players today can’t touch players from his era. The other day I overheard 2 young kids talking about who is the best basketball player ever Kobe or Lebron. I started to laugh and wanted to tell them neither. I wanted to tell them about Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, and Magic Johnson. Players whose names are synonymous with a city in which they played. Players who didn’t demand trades and didn’t cry all that time. Before I could tell them that thought came over my head, have I become that person?

       When I finished my first marathon I walked over to my dad to shake his hand and hear him say good job, which he did, followed by “what the hell are you wearing?” I was wearing compression calf sleeves and my Ipod arm band. After explaining everything to him he looked at me and said “When I ran we just ran, we didn’t wear that nonsense.” Hahaha obviously he didn’t know technology has taken leaps and bounds and this stuff is beneficial to you. (Well at least the sleeves are) Every time I buy a pair of new shoes I do always think about how when I started running you really didn’t get shoes for your foot type. You went to the store and bought what ever felt good. Recently I have ditched the sleeves during runs and now I wear the bare minimum. I don’t see anything bad with the sleeves and I still wear them to bed but I want to go back to when I first started and ran for running. I didn’t over think things. I ran with my heart and not with my mind. Maybe I just look at those other things as distractions now. Have I become that person?

       I guess I am becoming that person that I said I wouldn’t be. Some things you can’t control and when you are young you don’t realize that. I mean I could go on and on about how the times have changed and how I miss the good old days of when I was a kid. I look at my life and everything I have done and I wouldn’t change anything, I guess I am ok with the person I have become.

8 comments:

  1. Very good post. Yep, you are getting older ... welcome to the club of good old guys :)

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    1. Hahaha, it seems like it is a good club to be in!

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  2. I hear ya! I think about running XC in high school and we didn't have GPS watches. We just had to run by feel. How crazy is it that high school students have all the tech that I didn't have just 10 years ago?!

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    1. It's crazy to see in just a short amount of time how so much has changed. I think in XC I wore a normal ironman watch and I thought I had the coolest thing in the world, and all that did was basically work as a stop watch, lol

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  3. Excellent & I can so relate. Seems I have this convo with someone on a daily basis. Most "younger" people have no coping skills & don't know what it's like to have to wait for something. Things cycle don't they? (It's not a bad club to be in)!

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    1. I have no problem with being in a club with such great people!

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  4. It is a requirement of aging to be aggravated by the next generation's music, clothing, lack of respect for authority and hard work. So, yes, you are THAT GUY, but so am I and so are lots of us. Would these kids just pull their damn pants up!!!!!

    In separate news, I nominated you for Very Inspiring Blogger Award. No pressure to participate, but I just wanted to let you know I enjoy reading your stuff.

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    1. Thank you very much for the nomination. Where do you go to nominate someone?

      And totally agree pull the damn pants up, I don't need to see peoples underwear all day long

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