This past weekend I participated in my triathlon team’s annual “Pub Run” event. The event serves as a social event to bond with teammates, sweat a bit, meet new members and make some memories. This year we started at the Harpoon Beer Hall. Harpoon is one of our amazing team sponsors and they have an large gathering space that overlooks downtown and their brewing operations. Bonus, lots of yummy beer and cider on tap!
Unfortunately for us, the weather was not exactly cooperating! It was snowing at a good clip and then turned to rain. In total we received somewhere in the 4-6 inch range of snow, but it was thick and wet, which means terrible shoveling. Given the weather, we normally have a crew of 70-80 people, but this year we had about 30 at various points throughout the day. Since I am now a member of the executive committee at Social Director this year, I knew I wanted to stand by the team and run through the bad weather to have fun with my teammates.
Pub Run “Race Bibs”, sadly these did not fair well in the wet snow!
Small, but mighty crowd ready to run from Harpoon
One great bonus is that the Pub Run serves as a welcoming event for our new members, also known as Rookies. Rookies are asked a series of trivia questions and asked to don silly BTT gear like BTT boxers, beads, glow sticks, boas and my favorite: swim cap and goggles before running out to run to the next bar. It’s all in good fun!!
Veteran BTT members serve as “refs” and stand at targeted intervals throughout the course and make sure no one gets lost. They also are responsible for asking the trivia questions and making sure everything runs smoothly. Safety first!
We stopped at the Kinsale around 3pm for some food, slide show, rookie introductions and a quick team photo! Spirits were high and it was great to excitedly talk about the year ahead.
Rookie, Katie answering Trivia. I wasn’t joking about the boas!
Yay BTT!
I even tried out running with my new GoPro Hero4 Silver and my new favorite toy, the beloved “selfie stick”. Maybe it was the weather, the drinks, the sweat but there aren’t too many attractive shots! It was fun to bring out the new toy and play around with it though.
Running through downtown with the Old Statehouse in the background!
All in all, it was a great day! My back felt great and the positive energy and laughs were overflowing. It was just the fun athletic day I needed! I was skeptical of how the day would pan out considering the bad weather, but we persevered! What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?!
Total Miles 4.6 (broken up into several stops), officially the longest I have run in quite some time!
Does your tri club or tri team have any silly events or fun traditions?!