Another 20 Mile Run on Thunder Game Day, NBA Mascots Come to OKC and Litter Pick Up

My legs got one heck of a workout yesterday!! The Oklahoma City Marathon is in 3 weeks so they hosted their final 20 mile group run starting at 6:30 am. This was the 3rd 20 mile run that we did and none of them were on days that were ideal for me but I still managed to do all 3. The first one was 5 weeks ago and was on the day of a Thunder game, the 2nd was when my sister and brother in law were in town and yesterday was another Thunder game. Always tougher when the Thunder are playing because I always have to hurry home afterwards, take an ice bath to help my leg muscles heal faster and then get ready to head to the Ford Center were I always end up doing plenty of walking. The run went really well other than the fact that it was 40 degrees with a 30 MPH wind and my quads are a little sore today but other than that I feel good. I figured I deserved a reward so I went to an all you can eat pizza buffet for lunch today.

Friday night was our first Thunder mascot night. I usually love mascot night. and enjoy watching them to their thing. Unfortunately it ended up being one of the craziest nights of the season for me as I had one of my smallest staffs of the season and found myself putting out fires all night. We had 10 NBA mascots running around doing silly things and I barely even saw them. I did get a chance to head out to dinner with them after the game and caught up with a couple of the mascots (Denver Nuggets and Portland TrailBlazers) that I've known for years. This is also the point where I have to say that my busy night prevented me from taking any cool pictures of people in costumes. Sorry.

Last Wednesday the Thunder celebrated Green Week and one of the events was to help pick up trash at a local Boys and Girls Club. The event only lasted an hour and I volunteered to help. A handful of Thunder employees (no players, but we did have a couple of the Thunder Girls) were given a garbage bag and rubber gloves and walked around the outside of the building picking up trash with a group of about 50 kids. After we cleaned the area up, the kids went inside to play a game of "trash basketball" which is where they pick up trash from the center of the basketball court, run down to their team's end of the court and make a basket while one of the Thunder Girls attempted to catch it in a garbage bag. Each member of the winning team received a nice basketball made from 40% recycled material. All of the kids were given a pair of tickets to an upcoming game and then got to board the Rolling Thunder Book Bus to pick out a free book. It was a fun event and one that I was happy to be a part of.

One other Wednesday story. It was April Fool's Day and I convinced my buddy Jonathan (Thunder Mascot Coordinator) that I had a prospective mascot appearance for Rumble. I gave him a phone number and told him to ask for Mr Lyon. The number I gave him was for the OKC Zoo. Turns out he didn't call until the next day but I think the person on the other end found it somewhat funny and informed him that the day before they received a few similar calls. My only regret is that I wasn't in the room when he asked a woman at the zoo to actually speak with Mr. Lyon. At the end of the call Jonathan told her who he was and she said he should talk to their PR Department because there could be some potential for a future Rumble appearance. Might be a prank that starts a nice relationship between the two.