Normal Rockstar

Back on the Road with Shawn McDonald

It's time to get back on the road. My band has spent the last couple of months in the studio working on our next studio release which is sounding KILLER (I'm a little biased, but I think you'll like it). So it's been nice to be home and do regular 'home" things... however, the coffers are empty and it's time to get back out on the road and sell some t-shirts!

And we're hitting it pretty hard... In the next 37 days we've got 27 shows (and 4 of those "off" days are GMA Week) from Florida to Washington State, Montana to California, and many stops in between. We're supporting an artist named Shawn McDonald and will be joined by a good friend of ours, Jason Gray. Along with drumming, I will be road managing the tour, so it's going to be a busy next few weeks for me. I will do my best to blog consistently, but if I disappear for a few days, you know what the deal is - it's called self preservation! I'd love it if you came by one of the shows and said hi though... Or just sign up to follow me on Twitter and keep tabs of me that way. Thanks - time to get back to work!

downhere, music, shawn mdonald, Twitter

Disney World Marathon Results

Well, I finished. That's about the only thing I can say about my race on Sunday at the Disney World Marathon. I was shooting for a sub 4-hour race and was on track to accomplish that at mile 13. But it was SO humid that by that point both of my shoes were soaked with sweat and the balls of my feet were already blistered. I realized that this would not be the day that I got a PR and really backed off, just aiming instead to finish under 5 hours.

Some lessons learned:

1. Training, training, training - admittedly, I was not as prepared for this race as I should have been. My longest run was only 20 miles, and I simply didn't get enough miles in before race day.

2. Location, location, location - I feel like I could eliminate the humidity factor if I trained a little more frequently in humid conditions. In the month and a half leading up to the race the majority of my runs were done in Montana, Calgary, and Nashville (during a cold spell). I haven't run in humidity since the summer, basically - not helpful when you're running in Orlando.

3. Keep the shoes dry - it's time I figured out how I can keep my shoes dry (or at least driER) on race day. Any suggestions? I'm wondering if there are sweatbands for legs or something like that. I've got the "moisture wicking" socks - but they really didn't do much for me. This will be the thing I'm going to be working on figuring out in the next couple of weeks.

So, that's the end of that run - it's over, in the past, and now I've got to start thinking about the Country Music Marathon and 1/2 Marathon in Nashville in April. To read more about how the rest of the Rockstar Runners did, check out the website.

[This post is part of Works-For-Me Wednesday - check it out!]

Disney World 1/2 Marathon Update

Here is a quick update from  Orlando, FL where Erin and I are participating along with some friends/teammates in the Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend. More to come tomorrow - I've got to go to bed so that I can run my race!

Birthday Celebrations in the Memphis Airport

My birthday was Sunday (Happy Birthday to me!), and - if you read my last post - my wife and I were on our way home from Chicago where we saw the musical "Wicked" (here's another picture from downtown Chicago late at night). Our original plan was to arrive in Nashville at 3:45pm, go home, bake a cake, and open my presents. Well, as they often do when one flies, things didn't go as planned. We arrived in Memphis at 12:30 only to discover that our 2:40 flight to Nashville was canceled and that we would have to wait until the next flight out... at 7:45pm.

So we spent my birthday afternoon in the Memphis airport watching football, walking laps around the terminal to work off our ice cream, and just hanging out together. It was definitely not what we were planning, but we were together - and that's all that mattered.

We got to bed by 12:30am after getting home at 10pm, opening presents, and hanging out with our roommates. A great start to another year of my life... with my wonderful wife by my side, everything is possible!

Who Is Normal Rockstar?

I'm back. I'm sorry it's been so long... I took a rather impromptu, not-completely-intended hiatus from blogging for the last week and it's been rather nice. I've really just been trying to get reacquainted with my wife this last week since we returned home from an intense 6-day work trip (she travels with me, but that sure doesn't mean we see much of each other each day!), and it's been great.

So when I told her this morning that I needed some time to post a blog, she said, "What are you going to blog about? Why don't you tell them about your life? Don't they want to know who Normal Rockstar is?"

Well - it's rather presumptuous of me to assume that you DO want to know who Normal Rockstar is, but I guess I'll write the post and you can tell me in the comments if you NEVER want a post like this again. This may actually be interesting for some of you as you've recently become readers and haven't really figured out who the guy behind the blog is yet.

4 Days in Ireland: Day 3

Wednesday morning - the morning of the show - we woke up still not knowing if the show was actually going to happen. After talking with Philip, we moved forward as if it WAS going to happen - they had seen some movement that morning (it turns out a high ranking official in the Irish government was a Christian and had some family members who had purchased tickets to come to the concert that night, so he started pushing things through quickly) and while there was still no guarantee that everything would come through in time, things were looking a lot better than they were the day before. We were picked up by the bus to take us to the venue around 2pm. The Odyssey Arena in Belfast is the premier arena venue in all of Northern Ireland. And the funny thing is, the first time we were in Northern Ireland with Philip we drove past the arena on our way to Ballymena and he joked, "One day I'm going to have you guys play in there!" We all had a great laugh... and just a couple of years later, there we were.

4 Days in Northern Ireland: Day 2

Tuesday was when things started to get crazy. We slept in and had a late breakfast at the hotel. During breakfast we got a phone call from Philip's mom (Philip is the promoter of the show, in case you forgot) informing us that Chris and his band were stuck in Immigration at the Belfast airport and chances were pretty good that they would be denied entry into the country.

And the praying began.

Very quickly our day of sightseeing turned into a day of praying for divine intervention and entertaining ourselves at the hotel (click here to see what a whole day in a hotel will do to you!). Interestingly enough, Philip's company is named atiG Events - the atiG stands for "Always Trust in God". It was as if the Lord was testing to see if they really believed their namesake.

4 Days in Northern Ireland: Day 1

Well, I told you I had a story for you, and here it is... It's going to come at you in pieces as I obviously don't do a very good job of recounting tales such as this briefly (plus, I want to be able to remember the whole trip when I look back in a few years and read these entries). If you want a condensed version of the story from the perspective of one of my favorite Irishmen, click here.

Sometimes things just don't work out how we expect. I had grandiose intentions of blogging daily from Northern Ireland last week - I was there with downhere to open for Chris Tomlin in the Odyssey, Northern Belfast's premier venue. We flew into Dublin Monday morning and took a shuttle bus two and a half hours north to Belfast where we were picked up by our good friend Philip, who was also the promoter for the event. (Note to travellers: if you're looking at doing any cross Atlantic flights any time soon, I would NOT recommend flying Continental unless the price is just too good to beat. This was my first time flying to Europe with them, and it wasn't terribly pleasant - tight seats, old-school planes and entertainment systems... I will work hard to find other options before I book a long flight on Continental again.)

Technorati Tags: downhere, Europe, music, Northern Ireland

downhere Goes to Ireland

Erin and I are on our way to Ireland this afternoon with downhere. It's going to be a great week - we're actually going to get some time to walk around Belfast and visit some of the area. I'll post some pictures and stories as they develop (hopefully we'll be able to find some internet access that won't cost a fortune!). Stay tuned for some good times!

Jars of Clay and Short Shorts

I was in Muskegon, MI last night with my band playing at Unity Festival. It was a beautiful night - maybe 80 degrees (which was cool compared to the 100+ degree weather we've been enduring in Nashville!) - and the venue was pretty much right on the water. We played after Leeland and before Jars of Clay - two great bands. After our set we went out and spent some time signing autographs and visiting with people, so we only caught the last few songs of Jars' set. But - as you can see from the pictures - it was a set like no other.

I guess they've been wearing outfits reminiscent of 80's workout gear at all their shows this summer. Well, last night they rocked them (and us) all night long. Sometimes if the guitar was placed just right it looked like Steve didn't have any pants on! It was a great show - looked like some of them have been running. Maybe they'd be interested in joining Team Downhere...