[yesterday’s run: 3.2 miles]
We moved here to Mississippi in 2009, fall of 2009. I had been challenged by a running acquaintance to run with him in a marathon in 2010, so I had some serious training to do. Over the winter I looked up local running groups online and the active one was Boardtown Runners over in Starkville. That group met every Saturday morning at the White’s home. There were usually 15-30 people there each week.
I ran my marathon, but kept going to “running group” every Saturday morning for years after that. Eventually my wife went with me. She would hang out at the White’s house while I was out running. She helped prepare the food and talked with the runners and walkers as they arrived back. I’m slow, so she had a lot of time to visit with people.
Then she decided to start. So she and I ran together both at home and at the group on Saturday.
She worked her way up 5k, 10k, half-marathon, marathon, to ultra-marathons and the Saturday group didn’t fit in with her goals so much. So I was going on my own again.
Then the White’s decided after 20 years of having people in their house every Saturday morning to pass that off to someone else. But no one else really took it on for the at-my-house aspect. But a small group kept meeting at a local eatery, run then eat. They’ve moved which eatery, they have settled down mostly at the Starkville Cafe. We lost the connection to the university (Mr. White was for a long time Dean of Students), and the group is smaller, maybe around 10 people each week, depending, and older.
I’m kind of hit and miss on attending. It is still my “default” to go to Saturday morning running group. But if I accidentally sleep in, or if I’m travelling or have to work extra hours, it is no big deal and I just run from home instead.
One couple, the Roberts had hosted the group a few times when the Whites were unavailable, and maybe after that venue closed down. They were university people, professors. They eventually moved away, went out to Utah to different university jobs. There was an attack on their house by Mr. Robert’s brother and Scott and his brother died in that incident and the house was burned.
I didn’t go to running group yesterday. I just happened to sleep until 6:30 am, which is kind of unusual for me. I ran from home instead.
But I missed a bit of a memorial get together at the White’s house (I had not known it was happening.)