Today I found out what a “social” running club is. I was looking at races for Houston to see what was going on. I found a 5k race for this weekend near my neighborhood. When I looked at the details for the race, there was a link to the running club that was sponsoring the race. The West End Running Club is an FFP club which means, “Fun, Fitness and Philanthropy.” Their 5k this weekend is a fundraiser for one of their charities. So I not only learned about their upcoming race, but I found our some details about the club.
This running club is FREE! Yes, free! It meets once a week at the West End Pub, Tuesday evenings between 5:30pm and 8:30pm. The club has created running maps for 2, 3, 4 and 6 miles. Basically, you show up at the Pub, sign in and then run between 5:30 and 8:30pm. After you run, the club supplies water and the pub puts out a full dinner (pasta, salad, fruit and dessert) at 7pm. Did I say that this was a pub? So, yes, many of the runners also drink Beer after the run.
Tonight I ran 2 miles with the club, had a beer and met some of the runners but didn’t stay for dinner. I had fun and think that I’m probably going to join this group again. Some of the people that I met were very nice and the food looked good. One of the club organizers is even running the Pixie Dust Challenge in May (the same one that I’ll be running with my sister!). With all the runners, however, its unlikely that I’ll find her at the race — but it was fun talking to her as she is working on completing her “coast to coast” challenge. (Disney gives you a special medal when you run one half-marathon at Disneyland and one half-marathon at Disney World in the same year. It’s called the “coast to coast challenge”.)
