Starting to socialise

Last night was my first time going to a running club.

After looking around and procrastinating, Martin finally kicked my arse into gear and I emailed a couple of clubs and having received only one response the choice was easy.

The Pacific Road Runners meet near downtown at a place called Granville Island which is about 30 mins away from me, no matter if I go by bike, car or train. Having had a quick look round last night I can say that I will be going back to explore the place in more details as it seemed full of cool bars and restaurants.

And now I come to think of it, While Martin was here we tried a couple of nice Granville Island beers which I guess came from there too.

Anyway back to the running. The group seems to be good cross section of people and they were all friendly enough and kept the poking with sticks to a minimum. I went out with a chap called Suki (sp?) for the first part of the run over one of the main bridges into downtown and then along the seawall to Second Beach in Stanley Park.

At about the 5k mark we caught up with another group of runners and so I merged into them so I could meet and chat too as many people as possible. After a quick lap around Lost Lagoon (not sure what is so lost about it) we headed back along the seawall and back to the club. The pace was maybe a few seconds a K faster than I would have normally done it, but that is one reason I wanted to joining a club so I could push myself a bit more.

So for a first run with them I had fun and it was great to run with people again along a very scenic route. I'll be going back on Tuesday for another run and thinking I'll be joining up with soon after that.

After the run I was feeling a little peckish so I stopped in on the way back to an 'English pub'. Well to be fair the name is Three Lions Cafe which it certainly does what it says on the tin. I had a very tasty bangers n' mash served in a Yorkshire pudding bowl. I can highly recommend it. I also decided to go against an English beer and try some more local fair. I have forgotten the name of it now but it was a very good pale ale which did the job nicely.

Due to my solo nature, I managed to get a seat up at the bar and got chatting to a couple of locals and the staff. Who turned out to love impersonating the English accent and quoting lines from a bit of Fry and Laurie.

All in all a very pleasant way to spend an evening meeting some new people and starting to build a bit of a routine into my life.