Atypical

Saturday's 12 miler was a breeze. It was a bright warm day. We ran along the Willamette River and it was just perfect. I ate my first Gu at six miles - the texture was really gross but the energy that I got from it made it all worth it. During our run, we were talking with our friend, Carolyn. Mike told her that when he and I got home we should ride out to Helvetia tavern for burgers. Carolyn immediately responded, "ride?!?!" Clearly she could not understand how we would ride bikes to a remote restaurant after running 12 miles. Because that's what runners do - they ride their pedal bikes. Mike replied to her, "oh, I have a Harley." End of conversation.

Mike and I are novice runners. There are times when we are with our running group when we show our true colors and get funny looks. I remember the first time that I told the group that I ate lucky charms before my Saturday long runs. I got some chuckles and some funny looks. For weeks Mike and I would get asked where our water belts were. We finally got with the program: I started eating pb&j and we got a water belt. Those things have been tremendously helpful. We feel like we are staring to sort of fit in. We're turning into runners. And then we go home...

After our run, we came home to our dog. Not our lab or our retriever, but our cairn terrier. We tried running with her once and that failed miserably. Penny has three speeds: sprint, walk, and lay down. We definitely do not have a running dog. Every week the Run Oregon blog features a "dog of the week" and I always think about sending Penny's picture in - she may not be a running dog, but she boosts my spirits when I get home from a run :)

After greeting Penny, we took showers, got on our riding gear, and rode the Harley out to a hole-in-the wall tavern for burgers, onion rings, fries, and root beer! Saturday long runs deserve a meal like that. For us at least :)

As I was sucking down my third glass of root beer to rehydrate, I realized that no one in that tavern would peg us as runners. And no one seeing us walking our dog would peg us as Harley riders. And no one that we just ran 12 miles with is on their third glass of root beer! Why be part of one group when you can reap the benefits of being part of all of them :)