irunoffroad

What makes running such a great sport, “The Runners” it’s as simple as that. Ultimately your fellow runners give this individual sport of ours, its “Team Spirit”. The last 24 hours have emphasised this to me through a new pair of shoes and a local event that I’m not running in.

Friday 3pm, I visited “Runners Need” which is part of the Snow & Rock shop in Port Solent as they had a sale on. I’d heard good reports from Paul Coates and was very impressed with the knowledge and service I received from Olly the running specialist who clearly spoke from experience. Out of the various brands we concluded that the Saucony Peregrine was the shoe for me, even with its bright orange laces !! Christmas present sorted ??

On arriving home I posted on twitter for peoples thoughts. Lee Rhodes who I know from our local Bayside Tri club commented that he’d run a 100K Ultra in them with no blisters, Absolute Running’s Nick commented “awesome” and Gosport Road runners Ben Jarvis had found them comfy on his trail marathon. Thank you to our local twitter community.

I posted a “Portsmouth Marathon/Ultra Good Luck” message on facebook in the evening to my Fareham Crusaders club mates with Louise Riches commenting back and a number of likes. I asked two separate club mates if they’d mind writing race reports for the club website. Michelle Edmundson replied, “of course it’d be a pleasure. George Divine’s reply, “would love to”, thanks guys, look forward to reading them.

This then brought us to Saturday morning and a trip to Absolute Running regarding the shoes. On my arrival I was immediately asked if I’d like a cup of tea and the two customers Nick was serving (who also had teas) seemed happy for me to be served while they were drinking. I chatted to Nick and Ros Clarke, who I also know, then tried on two different pairs and we concluded the Peregrine’s were the answer. Again excellent service and the fact that AR’s Nick was keen for me to have the right shoe rather than him make a sale spoke volumes.

I was then introduced to the 2 tea drinkers and as it turned out they were Phil and Sarah Hobby from Stubbington Green runners. After Phil’s first comment being “we read your blog” we chatted for a while and then it was time to go and pick up my bright trail shoes from Port Solent. Bright, yes, but as Olly said, they’ll be brown within a mile of running just like everyone else’s.

So that was “10” runners I’d directly talked to, one way or another, in 24 hours with nothing but positivity on every occasion and no actual running. A real running #community.

Finally, this is my 50th Blog since I started in April and as we are talking about people I’d like to say a huge thanks to everyone that voted for me before the December 4th Running Awards Best Blog shortlist was announced. I made it there with your votes … Thank You.

Voting starts a fresh for the shortlist so if you voted before I’d really appreciate you doing so one more time please.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year  from Roger