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

Friday, April 10, 2015

Random Friday: unexpected trip

I did a lot of thinking about what I wanted to write about today. Normally I would be going through news articles of the week and giving you my spin on what the big story was. Well after checking out the stories and coming up with the conclusion that the news is so fucking depressing, I have decided to go in another direction today. Instead of talking about the Boston Bombing trial or the cop shooting, I am going to tell you a feel good story. I am going to tell you about one of my favorite weekends I had, because who needs that depressing shit in their life.

About 13 years ago a group of friends and myself worked at Blockbuster video. (R.I.P. to the video era) It still ranks as the best job I ever had. Going to work was more like going over a friend’s house. That is another story for another time though, which I will have to tell. Anyway a group of us that worked there decided to go white water rafting one Saturday. We all managed to get other workers to cover our shifts or get the day off. We had reservations to be on the river at noon, so we figured we would just leave a few hours early and drive up to Ohio Pyle that day. Five of us crammed into one car and made the trip. Thank god it only took a little over an hour to get there. We were all so pumped up to be going rafting. None of us had ever done it before. We went to where we needed to check in. There was a lady working who told us we had a problem. The night before it rained really bad. The river which was normally at 8 feet was now at 13 feet. This meant the water was flowing faster than normal and the rapids were even worse than what they normally would be. She informed us there would be no one going out on the river that day. I think it was my cousin Chris who asked if there was any chance the water would go down and we would be able to go tomorrow. The worker wasn’t sure and said she had no idea. So there we are, five of us pissed off not sure what to do. We could just say the hell with it and get a refund or we could take a chance and try again tomorrow. We decided we were going to chance the weather and hopefully the river would go down for tomorrow. The weather was sunny and hot so the odds were in our favor. Now here is where we show just how stupid we really are. The smart thing would have been jump back in the car drive home and just drive back tomorrow. It’s not like we were traveling thousands of miles, it was literally a few exits on the turnpike. Not us though, we came up with the bright idea that we needed to stay there overnight. Now remember we were only supposed to be going for a few hours, so none of us brought a lot of money. The rafting was already paid for so we only needed money for small things. Between the five of us we had a total 80 dollars and a credit card that was supposed to be used for emergencies. Our first plan was call work and see if we could all miss Sunday. I was the only one with a cell phone and everyone used it. We managed to convince our manager to get people to work for us or give us off. Next was finding a spot to sleep. We found a camp up the road and a site was only 25 dollars for the night. We now had a place and $55.00 left. We headed to the store to get some things for the night. We left the store with 2 tarps (we figured we would make a cheap lean too tent) hot dogs, Dorito’s, a Frisbee, and fishing line and hooks. The only thing we were missing was beer and since this counts as an emergency we used the credit card and purchased 3 cases. That night we fished with make shift rods, got hammered and made hot dogs over a fire. We had a blast. It did get cold at night so I slept in the car and of course I got called a pussy for doing it. 3 hours later my brother in-law George and friend Rob was in the car with me. Chris and our friend Mike were so drunk they slept under the tarp. Mike was so drunk he fell in the fire at point of the night and burnt his arm. Funny at the time, not funny as I look back on it now.

We woke up the next day to sunny skies and warm weather. We had our fingers crossed the water on the river went down enough to let us go rafting. After cleaning up our camp site we headed over to the rafting place. We were informed that water had went down to 9 feet, and we would be able to go rafting. Our guide came over to introduce himself and go over the rules. This dude was jacked, he was not only a river guide but he was a fire jumper. Ya, he is the guy who jumps out of planes into forest fires. As we looked at the other rafts we noticed everyone was wearing helmets. I asked if we should put them on. They were optional, so naturally our group threw them off to the side. We started our trip down the river and one by one someone fell out of the boat because they were still drunk or not paying attention. Our guide was quick to get us back in the boat. When Rob fell out George caught him by the leg and was holding him, only problem was Rob’s head was under water and we were too busy laughing instead of pulling him back in. Once again as I look back not the brightest group on the river that day. At one point you stop and have lunch. Every other raft was getting out and grabbing their lunch. Not our group though we pulled over and people were pulling out baggies with their cigarettes and smokable plants if you know what I mean. Once again not the brightest group. We finished the rafting trip with no one dead or injured unless you count second degree burns on Mike’s arm from falling into the fire, so that is a positive. To this day when people ask me about my favorite trip I always bring up this trip. It was unplanned and we had one of the greatest times of our life. Only downfall was my cell phone bill for that one day was around 400 dollars and we found out beer does not count as an emergency.

Sometimes when you don’t plan something out those are the best times. Did we do some stupid things? Absolutely. Should we have just drove home and returned the next day? Probably. If I had the chance would I do it the exact same way? Without a doubt.

“There are some people in life that make you laugh a little louder, smile a little bigger and live just a little bit better”

Have you ever not planned out something and it turned into a great experience?

2 comments:

  1. What a great start to my morning. This made me smile. Those really are the BEST memorable times & something to tell over & over. To be so carefree & unregimented is an awesome thing. Thanks for sharing.

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