Maintaining my Wednesday night social run routine, I met up with a group of Robin Hood Marathoners at the Sweatshop, the major retail sponsor of this year’s road race. The store manager, Martin, had invited me along earlier today while I was in the shop inquiring about retrieving my race package. This evening we covered eight an a half hilly miles together, my legs still lagged from travelling and exploring the city by foot the past few days.
From the shop we headed through the rural outskirts of the city beginning along the Trent River Trail (where incidentally a dead body had been pulled just last night), and made our way through the residential neighbourhoods of Wilson and West Bridgeford. We also wove past the Notts County and Nottingham Forest Football Clubs where I thought Martin might pause in a moment of undue veneration.
In the end, I got in couple of good up-tempo miles before next week, a tour of one end of town and a motivating boost from an evening surrounded by another bunch of crazy runners. While I do miss my old friends at the RF, it was nice to find a common thread in Nottingham’s local band of distance runners. And if they Sweatshop continue to replenish us with wine gums at the end of each run, their shop will have recruited another regular on Wednesday nights.
