The first rule of Run Club is: Come to Run Club. Seriously. Everyone should come.
There aren’t actually any rules to the Run Club that I joined last Thursday. Other than the particular meeting time and place, I suppose. I was hesitant to go at first, because I’m not a fast runner. But this running club is not about speed. It’s about getting out and running in a group, socializing and running. And, so far, it’s about running with the girls.
A few years ago, I tried to join a community running group led by a shoe store, See Jane Run. They’re closed now, in Boise, but while they were here I gave it a try. As I recall, four people showed up, two of them employed by the store. The other women were much faster than me, and though I tried to engage in conversation with the one who slowed herself to run with me, I never felt comfortable. And I didn’t go back.
This running club is through Arbor Crossfit, though not strictly one of their programs, hence the “club” part of the name. One of the women there wanted a chance to socialize and run. Turns out, she’s not the only one interested in that.
There have been two meetings so far, of which I attended the second, because the first was during the week that the Walker fire smoked out the Treasure Valley. I plan to keep going, even as the weather gets cold. As I told the organizer last week, I’ll run in the cold, but not on ice, at least, not on the Greenbelt. Maybe in the winter we can do some special snow days in the foothills where I can break out my yaktrax to deal with the slippage.
The second rule of Run Club is: Keep coming to Run Club.