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

Monday, May 25, 2015

Ready, Set..........

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY

First and foremost thank you to all the men and woman who have served for this great country.

This past week my running was going to be pushed aside for a bit while I helped my cousin Mike film his movie. You may remember last year at this time we were filming for the 48 hour film competition, well this was not anything like that. Mike actually brought in some heavy hitters and used kickstarter to fund this film. Both the main actor and actress are in numerous shows and came in from New York, along with the assistant director. I was asked to be the production assistant. I will get more into the movie in a bit but first let's go over the running that actually took place for the week.

MONDAY: 4 MILES on a treadmill: 8:23 Pace...These short runs are becoming so much more easier now that I am basically drinking only water in the daytime. Now that I am hydrated I feel so much better, there is no pains that I previously would feel in my legs. After this run I said to myself I could of went farther and faster. For me that shows I am making improvements at getting back to where I once was. I am starting to get excited to run a 5K to see where I really am. At one point in the winter I dreaded the treadmill, every run would be terrible bu

TUESDAY: This day turned out to be a nightmare. I went to my local track only to find out there was some kind of local track meet going on. I headed to another track about a fifteen minutes away only to find out there was a youth track practice, and they were taking up 3/4 of the track. It was getting late so I headed to the back side of the track and did 100 meter sprints. Not something I would ever do for a speed workout, but desperate times call for desperate measures. 

WEDNESDAY: 4 MILES: 34:18, 8:33 Pace..I chose a course that had a decent amount of hills. My goal was to do negative splits. I started out the first mile just getting my legs under me at a 8:57, Mile 2 was a big up hill but I held my pace and was able to use the flat sections to pick up some speed. I ran mile 2 in 8:53. Mile 3 was a big down hill that went into a decent up hill. I felt really good and used the downhill to my advantage. I ran mile 3 in 8:06. Mile 4 is where I made the decision to go a route that was mainly all up hill instead of all flat. I knew that it would take some work to go under 8:06 without really going 100 percent, which is not the point of these runs.  I kept a good pace and finished mile 4 with a 8:19, not to bad for being all uphill. I felt really good with this run and my second and third mile felt really good. This run has me thinking about a few things that may help me on race day's. 

THURSDAY:  My cousin Mike was having a meet and greet at his house for people that were part of his movie. I figured I would stop over and introduce myself before we started filming on Friday. Since I felt bad that I would be basically gone all weekend shooting I took my wife to the movies before the meet and greet so she could see Pitch Perfect 2. There was no running this day.

FRIDAY: As soon as I left work I had to head to the location of shooting for day 1 of the film. I was originally supposed to be the guy who works the slate. That is the guy who says " Act 2, take 3". I have never done that and didn't realize there is a lot that is involved with it, so Mike let one of the guys with the lighting and film crew work that. Day 1 I didn't do much except move some things around and help carry things into the location.
lead actress going over her lines

testing out the camera on the tracks

SATURDAY: despite being tired I managed to make it down to Oakland to run with the SCRR crew. I ran with a 9:00/ pace group. First we did a 3 mile loop that had a huge hill up into sq. hill, but the second half was all down hill.  The second loop was more of a flat loop, and I wanted to hit the hard hill again so I decided to run my second 3 miles by myself and I picked up the speed to a 8:40/pace.

I had to be on set at 5 to help with things. Mike gave me the option of running the slate or helping with set design. I chose to do set design since I could tell they were running behind schedule. We transformed a house into what looked like a extravagant ball. As they were shooting one of the scenes, an extra wasn't feeling well and almost passed out. She left to go home and rest and that meant her ride had to leave as well, so now there was no bartender in the scenes. I jokingly said "great looks like I am going to have to fill in for that part." Well sure as shit I ended up being the bartender in the movie.  I was a little disappointed because I wanted to be like to Tom Cruise in Cocktail but no one was feeling that.

SUNDAY: filming ran very late on Saturday, like 4:00 am late so running was not in the cards on Sunday plus I had to be back on set at 4:30 to help set up for a new scene. This was my last day with the film since they only had 1 more day of shooting and I was not needed.  All I know is there is a lot of things that go into making a movie. My cousin is just making a short film and he looked like he was on edge everyday. I couldn't imagine what a real director goes through making a film that is over 2 hours long. 

Next week I will be back on schedule with running and I am hoping the improvements keep coming.
How did you spend your holiday weekend??
Is it scary how sexy one bartender can look?

lead actress getting into position for the shot
























6 comments:

  1. Great week! Very impressive that you fit in running with how busy you were. Good job!!

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    1. Thanks, I am trying to stay focused and make small sacrifices in order to get the runs in.

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  2. Ok that is really awesome that you got involved in a movie production! And how fitting that you were a bartender... even if you didn't get to dance around and show off your flair like Tom. ;) Will the movie be shown locally? Online?
    I can't believe you did any running at all so cheers for that! I know a couple of people in theatre - granted, that's not film, but I guess it can be similar - and when they are working on a show that's pretty much all they do. They might sleep sometimes.

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    1. Not really sure yet how they plan on showing it. The whole point of them making it was to enter it into major short film festivals across the country. Normally he will do a local showing at at theatre though. Either way when it is done I will have a copy so I will let you watch it. Anyone that does this for a living or most of the time, I can't see them having time for much more in their life.

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  3. Very cool about the movie filming! Also great that it seems like you've pinpointed the leg pains to just needing to drink more water. I can't wait to start running with SCRR, but I'll be away the next two weekends but will start after that.

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    1. Can't wait to see you there!! Finally I am going to have someone to talk too. Yes it seems the leg pains was water for the most part. During the marathon it was more of a strain

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