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

Thursday, October 30, 2014

How I Prep for a 24 Hour Run!!








Fish out of water is the best way to describe how I feel about my weekend coming up. If you told me I was running anything from a 5K to a marathon I would be able to tell you how to train and how to prepare for the race. Unfortunately I am not doing any of those distances this weekend. I honestly don’t know what distance I am running. I will be on a track for what could turn out to be 25 hours (thank you day light savings) straight of constant running or walking, or I could end up doing only a few hours depending on how many people show up. It would be awesome if I ended up only having to run an hour and the rest was taken off of me from people donating. I am a realist and know that chances of that are slim to none. I have never done an Ultra Marathon so I have never had to condition myself for long periods of time running. There are a lot of unknown variables in this for me.

So a few weeks back I started to really think about how I should go into this event. I will be two weeks off of the Columbus marathon when I take to the track. My training for that one race will be nice since I put in a lot of long runs and worked on building stamina. Only downfall to that is I don’t know how much my legs will be able to take. I tried to let my legs rest most of the 2 weeks off with having only ran 2 days. Both days were short 4 mile runs and were at a slow pace. I obviously know that staying hydrated will be key, so lots of water and Gatorade will be on hand. If you know me then you know I like food….ALOT! Sometimes these eyes are bigger than the stomach but I can still throw some food down. Eating will be a challenge for me since I have never done anything like this and I am not really sure about what I should do. Do I eat like I normally would any day of the week? Eating when I get a chance to rest while someone else is taking some laps, or do I eat small amounts in moderation? Plus side of all of this is there is a Port-O-Potty on site. Besides the food and water one thing that will be crucial will be stretching. There will be periods of time when I will be resting and then going back on the track. The last thing I will want to do is tighten up. I plan on stretching before and after each time I get on the track. I will also try to utilize my rest time the best I can, maybe short power naps or just sitting in my warm car until someone comes and grabs me and tells me my turn is coming up. Speaking of warmth, the weather is one variable I have no control over. Every weekend has been great recently, temperatures in the 60’s and 70’s. Go figure the weekend we have planned the temperature is supposed to drop to sub-freezing at night. (Mother Nature can kiss my ass) How do I plan for this? Well my plan is take a gym bag with lots of shirts. I will probably change almost every time I stop and rest. Even I know the last thing you want to do is have wet clothing on. My legs are usually good and I will be wearing my tights with compression socks. Also I have my ear warmer and skull cap to wear, plus an assortment of bandanas. Besides the clothing I will also have my 2Toms anti-chaffing wipes plus Vaseline and plenty of Band-Aids on hand. One thing that I still am unsure about is how my feet are going to handle this. I normally always get blisters during the marathon and there is a legit chance I will be doing higher mileage this weekend. I will have 3 different shoes on hand to rotate through and about a dozen different socks to choose from to help prevent blisters.

I just went back through and read everything I wrote down here and laughed out loud thinking, what have you gotten yourself into Shaun? Well let me explain to you why I am doing this run for Children’s Hospital. You would probably assume I have a child that had an experience at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. Nope, I do not have any children. So then you would assume I have worked there or no someone who does. I have never worked there and yes I do know people who work for the hospital but that has nothing to do with why I am doing this. My reason is very simple. I believe every person is given some kind of gift in life, some people can make beautiful music while others can paint you the perfect picture. My gift in life is running. It’s in my blood, I have been running for over 20 years now and it is what I am good at. I may not be as good as I was say 15 years ago but I can still run respectful times. I think we should all use whatever gift we have and try to help others out. My nephew was at Children’s Hospital a few months back and when Amanda and I went to visit him I found myself looking into the play rooms at the children playing and I thought it isn’t fair that they are there. I don’t know why most of them were there, but who wants to see a young child playing in a hospital play room when he/she should be playing outside at a park. So that day I started to brain storm what can I do to help? Then I thought to myself you love running and you love a good challenge, so from that a 24 hour run was born. At first it was going to be just me then I realized with the marathon so close I would need help. My cousin Chris who recently just started running and who has a daughter might want to help. So I threw the idea at him and he was quickly onboard. Once people found out about it the question of taking laps off of us was brought up. We decided why not let others get involved and make people donate to take laps. By taking laps the people are not only helping the children they are helping me and Chris.

My plan is very simple for this weekend, take it slow and have fun. I am going to run a mile then walk a lap and repeat. If I get tired then I will walk. I can promise you this though rain or snow it doesn’t matter we will be there and we will be running or walking for the children. So hopefully if you are in the area you will stop by and run some laps with me. You can still donate and don’t have to take laps, you can just donate and leave or you can donate and join whoever is on the track at that time. Or message me and tell me what time you plan on coming and I will make sure I am on the track at that time so we can run together. If I am awake and up to it I will let you know how it goes Sunday night. I will also be tweeting through out how many miles we have done.

-Use you gift and change the world!

4 comments:

  1. Good luck! Be sure to go slow, walk when you need to walk, and have fun! Can't wait to hear how it turns out!

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  2. I just made a donation since I'm not sure I'll be able to come out to run. If I don't see you, good luck!!!!

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    1. Thank you!!! Hopefully you can come but if not we understand, thanks for the donation

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