Rain

at first when i started posting to this blog again i thought it would mostly be about running and my training, knowing how exciting that is for everyone to read. then i talked to my brother and told him a story about my barber here in brookline and how on a saturday morning he was completely wired and sniffing, a lot! he suggested i blog about everyday stuff like that, with all the interesting details, and i thought that was a great idea. until i realized i'm lazy (i'm sick of saying i'm busy. in fact, i'm sick of everyone's excuse of they're busy. there's fat we could all trim from our day, but i get joy in watching around the horn every evening on my dvr!) and couldn't manage to post every time something interesting happened. so it's back to me running - maybe with a twist thrown in for good measure.

it seems as though the best time for me to post is on tuesday evenings in my office downtown after a run with the city sports running “club”. so if it works, stick with it, right? today was the second time i've run with the "club," and i use that term as loosely as possible because after a decent turn out last week, today the "club" consisted of 4 members:

1. me (the regular)
2. bill* (the guy from atlanta who was in the store because he needed a pair of socks)
3. kyle* (city sports "leader" - i'm using that term loosely as well)
4. alex* (kyle's brother, who also works at city sports)

* - refers to the fact that these names may or may not have been made up by me as i don't really remember their names.

missing from the "club" this week was the running shoe / apparel company rep, who was supposed to be from nike this week. this leads me to one of the points i'd like to make quick mention of - runners love freebies! kyle mentioned that "so-and-so" from nike wouldn't be here, but not to worry, he'd give us a free nike technical t-shirt after the run. this immediately prompted me to inquire if puma actually gave something away last week. in fact they did, according to kyle - one of those small nylon drawstring bags. damn, my cooldown cost me the opportunity to add to my nylon drawstring bag collection! grrrrr. no worries, i did get 1 red nike coolmax shirt today. i picked it from a box that contained about 45 red, blue, and white shirts. really, they couldn't have spared one more for me - the regular club member? i guess it wouldn't have hurt to ask, but i would have insulted myself further by having to ask for an additional freebie.

i normally haven't run with people in the past. i've done most of my training hans style - solo. i think the biggest reason is that it's hard to find the right people to run with - either they're too slow and they hold you back, or they're too fast and you get shattered. however, recently i've been running more with other people - the city sports "club" and a couple of guys from around my neighborhood with whom i work. the area that i've found running with others most beneficial is accountability. when i make plans to go running with someone else i feel obligated to run no matter what - except a real emergency (which doesn't mean "i feel tired"). this past thursday i made plans to run with a partner from work who i've run with on occasion and even gone out with for dinner / drinks. keith is a cool dude, and even dominated the boston marathon this year - his first marathon! as i was driving home that evening, i noticed an apocalyptic sky directly above brookline. after parking and strolling into my apt, it started to rain. not sprinkle, but rain. nine times out of 10 i would have bagged the idea of running. the one other time i would have went to the gym for an easy 5k. but, because keith wasn't interested in staying dry, i had to get out there and run with him. yeah, it was a monsoon. about halfway through the sky opened up and it just started pouring! but, at that point who cares because you're already wet, right? and then the weather in boston has been interesting today. overcast morning, humid and sunny afternoon, downpour at 4, sun trying to break through with sprinkles as i walked to meet up with the "club", and i'm sure you can guess what happened as soon as we took off on the run. yep, cats and dogs were falling from the sky in the form of raindrops! we kept going, because if you don't wuss out immediately and head back to shelter, you might as well log the almost 4 miles we got in tonight. i guess this is a good sign also that i'm not being affected by the weather much. my running is evolving into training... scary.

i'm going to leave off one additional subject that i wanted to mention. it has to do with races, so before i make statements based of my first race of the season on sunday (5 miler - 7:50 pace), i'm going to wait a couple of weeks till i do a couple more. see if my observations really are true.

next week brooks running is going to be the sponsor for the city sports running "club" so i'm going to have to do some name dropping, thanks to julie and her connections at brooks. maybe i'll even wear my brooks hat? and hopefully afterwards, i'll have a free shirt to wear with it.