Blubber To Runner

Running is more fun when you’re with people.  It’s really that simple.  When you’re not alone, you run faster and it seems to go much more quickly that it really does.  I think this is why my friends and I always try to get groups of people out for all the races we run… and why I’m trying to do it again!

I get asked quite a bit about races: which one(s) I am doing, where to find races etc. In regards to finding them?  There’s this AMAZING website that literally has tens of thousands of races listed with everything you need to know about them.

Just google race length and location that you desire then the ol’ Google machine will work its magic and spit out the best options.  I know it’s Google 101, but “the more specific you can be about your search, the better the search results will be”

NOW… as for which ones we are doing?  Here’s the list.  If you’re reading this, we want you to come out and join us.  These are all within the next 2 months… and you can run 1 or all of them if you want!  Doesn’t matter if we’ve never met, haven’t seen each other in 10 years or we saw each other yesterday.  Like I said in the beginning, running is more fun when you’re with people – and I can prove it!

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JUNE 24th – New York Giants Run of Champions 5K: This is gonna be AWESOME and, if I’m figuring it out correctly, will be the biggest group of peeps we’ve done a race with yet.  Myself, Jennifer, Nancy, Martin, Joe (with as involved as he’s been it’s actually his 1st race w/ us), Brian, Courtney, Mai and Hiba are ‘ALL IN’ already and we really wanna see a lot more people out there with us.  The kicker w/ this race?  You end the race running the length of the football field in Giants Stadium (sorry… not calling it MetLife Stadium.  Can’t do it.) and crossing the finish line IN THE END ZONE… WHILE YOU’RE SHOWN ON THE SCOREBOARD.  Yeah… pretty freakin’ sweet.

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JUNE 24th – Fitzgerald’s 1928 Lager Run: “Uhhh, Gach… you screwed up a race date in the blog.  I think you cut and paste it or something. It says you’re doing the Giants race and the Beer race on the same day. Just wanted to let you know dude!”  There is no screw up.  In the eternal quest to challenge myself and my personal boundaries (and because someone said “Think we can do 2 5K’s in 1day? I think we can. That would be fun. And this one has beer!”) I will be running TWO (2) 5K’s in ONE (1) day.  Right now there are four of us doing the ‘2 5K/ 1 Day Challenge’ and, if you really want to be able to say something even some of your more accomplished running friends can’t – maybe you should do this with us. Just on logistics alone it’s difficult to find – let alone participate – in 2 races in 1 day so, even if they’ve run farther than you in a race, you can still say “hey, I ran TWWOOO races in ONNEEE day…” 🙂

BUT IT DOESNT STOP THERE – Remember that “eternal quest to challenge myself and my personal boundaries” thing I mentioned? Well, the ‘2 5K/ 1 Day Challenge’ is gonna be equal parts fun as it is challenging so, in the spirit of the latter race being a Lager Run, two of us have decided to add a “Chaser” to the day.  The ‘6-Pack Chaser’ is exactly what you thought it was when you read those words in your head – in the 8 hours you have between the end of the Giants race and the beginning of the Lager Run, you gotta finish a 6-Pack of your libation of choice. There will be more details about THIS part of the festivities in the next week or two, so don’t be shy… hit me up if you wanna join us and we’ll give you the specifics!  Oh, and don’t be crazy uptight and hit me up with the health risks, etc… we’re all adults, not idiots.  If you wanna find a health cause involving running get after THIS RACE… which, incidentally, I REALLY wanna try as well.

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July 4th – Cranford Jaycees Firecracker 4-Miler:  This race has been in my hometown for YEARS… and now that I am running I HAVE to do it.  I know 3 of us have definitely signed up for it, with more coming, so once again it will be quite the large group of people.  Plus, being the fat guy running in front of this particular group of thousands of people will have my anxiety at an extremely high level, so the more the merrier!

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Might have to get this for the race!

July 25th – 11th Annual Downtown Westfield 5K & Pizza Extravaganza:  5K… Pizza… do I really need to say anything more than this?!?!  Actually, yes.  This is on a WEDNESDAY NIGHT at 7pm.  It’s gonna be super fun for sure, but I didn’t want that to go under the radar since 99.44% of races are run on weekends.  But there’s pizza, so I really don’t care what day it is.  It’s pizza for God’s sake.  We’ve got 5 definites, 1 “you know, I looked up that pizza race you’re doing…” and a few others that are interested as well!

(UPDATE 1:35p, 5/29/2012 – the 1 “you know, I looked up that pizza race you’re doing…” decided to take the plunge and make the commitment, so now it’s 6 definites for the pizza run!)

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So there you have it kids… the next 2 months worth of races that we have scheduled. I can’t stress this enough – IF YOU’RE READING THIS & WANT TO RUN, RUN WITH US!  If you’ve been reading my blog you’ll notice that the run group has gotten larger… and it’s because people (like YOU) reach out – just once – and then realize from that 1st race we all do it’s infinitely better to have a ton of people to do this with so they keep coming back.  Hit me up here, on FACEBOOK or TWITTER… I can speak on behalf of all my running peeps when I say “we can’t wait to run with you!”