[Today’s run: 7 miles]
Starting in December of 2009, up until about 10 weeks ago, I would get up early on Saturday morning and drive over to Starkville for the 6:30 AM group run with the Boardtown Runners.
In July we attempted to start something similar with group runs from our home near Columbus. And that went ok for a few weeks but then the attendance fell off. And we did a week of travel. And last week we were just tired. Our steady participants were a husband and wife who are running the Chicago Marathon tomorrow, so they aren’t in town this week (and probably not running today anyway). So we have gone four weeks (two with just nobody showing up, and two when we didn’t advertise a group run).
Today we made the trip back over to Starkville and had a very nice run with the group again. I suspect there were about 30 people, probably half or more are college kids from Mississippi State, mostly female.
I don’t have a lot of experience with running clubs, but that seems unusual to me, to regularly have a large group.
It is always at the White’s house. And they have food afterward. They put out water stops too. And it’s all free. The routes are good (about a 6-7 mile minimum if you go to the first water stop and come back). They have a big room with chairs and tables and all sorts of comfortable places to talk and sit. And they have a big patio too. And gatorade, water, and food.