The amber gold of running

This past Friday, myself along with 3 other teammates hosted a fundraiser for the marathon challenge. It was inspiring to see friends show up and donate and those that have already donated continue to openly give. All in all we raised close to $800 in one night. It was a fun event filled with coronas that went down a little too easy and meeting new people. Friends and I ended the night at the diner down the street. The cool part about this is that when I say friends, yes they are all my friends, but none of them knew each other. Here were 5 strangers to each other eating and laughing the night away. I always say how fortunate I am to have been surrounded by such amazing people over the years in Boston, but seeing them all connect solidified it. These friends, along with others who couldn't make it, have been my rock along these last 16 or so weeks. They've calmed my nerves and listened to my freak outs all while being there in all the right ways. Man, am I a lucky duck!

Saturday was another fun non-running day. I showed up to the Multisport Expo to compete in the team challenge with my tri team. I watched the runners as they were insanely fast along the course. I was part of the bike portion and this too was incredibly fast. While waiting for the bike to start, I talked with teammates and had fun shopping. The bike went off about an hour late which put a kink in my planning for the day. I ended up showing up to Shifter's 5k as the runners were lined up and ready to start. As I felt banditting would be uncool at a race like this, I instead chose to cheer them on at the finish. I headed home after that skipping the party in lieu of a good Saturday nap. I woke up around 5ish to a text from a friend seeing if I wanted to head over to his house for a drink. This means that I had now officially missed the 2nd fundraiser I had wanted to attend that day, Rob's pasta party. I was on a roll!

The plans of the evening quickly changed to going to CitySide. For those that do not know CitySide, it is a bar and grill in Cleaveland Circle that we all run by on marathon day and usually a minimum of 1 night a week in practice. My route for Sunday included running by it as does my route for this Thursday. I somehow was able to pull myself off the couch and away from Dr. Mario to head over and meet people. As we were all ordering, the guy next to me ordered the Sam Adams 26.2. Jamie was much more hip into beer knowledge as they had just released the kegs a day or two prior. Of course I had to order the beer as it was beyond exciting.

We all sat around the table discussing the upcoming marathon while drinking the special brew. I won't lie, it was possibly my favorite Sam Adams they have released yet. The light German style beer was going down super smooth and had all the flavors I like in a beer. In the end, my awesome friends picked up the tab for my 26.2s in honor of the marathon. Yes, I really do have cool friends!

I know many people reading this will vomit in the amount I am getting sucked up into the hype. Heck, I have not even crossed the start line. Yet, this season has been the experience. I started in December having never run more than 13.1 and now I can say I can run 23.5 and live to tell the tale. I can talk about the 800s on repeat that have been done at the track time and time again. I also can talk about the $7,500 I raised for Dana-Farber. So yes, if my running stops today, I would be devastated, but at the same time, I would be thrilled at what I've done thus far. It has been a good run so far with still so much more to come!