If we’d planned it ourselves, we couldn’t have wrangled a more beautiful weekend. Sunny and just warm enough to wear t-shirts, but not too hot for running. More like this, please. MMRCers were out and about. Did you see us? Next time, join us!

Barefoot Josh shows off his medal for placing second overall/first in his age group in Walnut Cove's Warrior 5K

Barefoot Josh slapped his bare feet into second place overall—and first in his age group—at the Warrior 5K in Walnut Cove. He also set a new PR of 20:02. Barefoot! They gave him a medal and a bucket of chicken soup. That Charlie’s Soap he uses to clean the gunk off his feet must give him extra speed or something. And this happened:
Afterward, a lady actually touched my feet. Someone wanted to take a picture of my soles (for their scrapbook, maybe). As I was posing, like the pro that I am, a lady nearby sidled up next to me and touched the bottom of my foot. I felt so violated. “Unhand me, you brute!” I squealed. Actually, I just thought “Huh. That would have really tickled before.” She said she couldn’t help herself.

Tamara frotzed along the paths down near Greensboro:
I went down to the Greenway late this morning [Saturday] for a couple of miles. There were a lot of people out—runners, bikers, families with picnics. It was sunny, but still cool enough for comfort. Beautiful!

Iris discovered the remnants of Ida blocking the way at Farris Park and unwittingly blew off Tamara’s other half:
Got out to Farris at 9:30-ish. The path near the bridge was totally flooded, and I wasn’t wearing my water wings, so I did three around-to-the-flood-and-backs, plus the perimeter of the parking lot. I figure that’s about five miles. Took me 70 minutes, including stretch time, so good enough. Also, this sort of counted as a group run, because I saw a guy running with a dog. Turns out it was Tamara’s husband, Harvey. He and I haven’t actually met, and at the time we were unaware of our Kevin Bacon–style friendship, so we engaged in what preschool teachers call “parallel play”—doing the same activity separately and without acknowledging the other person.

It was good for me to run alone, which I rarely do. I’m struggling as a newbie runner, and my old teaching injury (slipped disc, with resulting sciatica) is really adding to the challenge. Being in my own head for a while can be beneficial. After one around-and-back, I devised a nice, smooth Galloway shuffle that I could maintain for the duration. No worries about my lack of speed with nobody around. Stretches between laps helped a ton, as did the excellent “Best of A.R. Rahman” collection of Bollywood tunes, which is a great alternative to my favorite running music, the Swades soundtrack.

The rest of the MMRC gang were sighted racing around Madison. Maybe they’re still out there. If you see a crowd of sweaty people trotting past your house, toss a Gatorade their way, willya?