What is in your running wallet? It is that time of year again when all manner of promises are made to re- build bodies or reclaim former glories after a holiday season in which much festive cheer is consumed, both in liquid form and as comestibles. We will, naturally, run for fine wine. We are, after all, runners. In saying that, what notes of caution must I sound? Read on…

FIT

We can be fit, stay fit and enjoy looking fit. As runners, we like to indulge in our favorite past time as a means of attaining and maintaining our fitness. Our social media overflows with stories of how we ‘fought the flab’ and, in some cases, almost lost a whole person in the determined effort to drop

weight and get moving. While it is widely known that running alone does not lead to weight loss, adding a good diet to our running endeavors does indeed see unwanted weight fall away. Some of us struggle, your writer included, with the siren call of a great glass of wine or a beer or four with friends, but for the more disciplined among us fitness is the holy grail striven for. Of course, even if we cannot hone ourselves down to a sylph like equivalent of our high school selves, we can, at least, look forward to our annual physical. This is where the Doctor or nurse asks us while casting an incredulous look in our direction having completed our vitals, ‘are you feeling alright?’. We respond with a slight smirk on our faces by saying, ‘Oh, I’m a runner!’. Enough said!!!!

FAST

If you follow all the rules of training well such as maintaining a great diet, using the correct post run recovery supplements from Sergio Yibrin, refusing to imbibe alcohol, being a gym rat and doing EXACTLY what Melissa Hinton tells you to do, you will become fast. Fast is something many in our club aspire to and achieve, others merely dream of and a few more, me included, lament as something we had in the past. Being fast is much cherished by many, but our club holds it in the same esteem as getting out there and entering race after race, come weather of all degrees of heat and humidity. NWBRRC celebrates the fact its members can run and take part……..we are proud of the fast but equally proud of the persistent. Each Saturday I have the ‘Speed Inc’ or just Joe Gonzales….Fast is good, but not the only thing as many will tell.

FUN

This brings me nicely around to the best part of being a runner and being part of NWBRRC, it is simply the best damn running club in the land and the most fun by a country mile or is that a holiday mile? Why? The answer is simple. Everyone who participates has a ‘bloody good time’ as we English say. Even if we are injured we often turn out on a Saturday just to be with our road friends. We have training buddies, road wives and husbands and training competitors to push us to new levels of achievement. Naturally this leads to the maxim: What happens on the road, stays on the road only to see that whole concept trashed by my Saturday Facebook post. You can’t hide in this club. Well, you can if you talk to me nicely. When all is said, and done, we enjoy what we do. We laugh, sweat, cry, cheer on and proclaim our happiness individually and for each other in races.

FAT

Of course, the alternative to all those early mornings, disgruntled spouses, abandoned kids and confused pets that never understand why you do not take them for a walk, is to form a close relationship with a sofa, pull up the candies and fester. I mean, get fat!!!!! The choice is clear. If you do not get off your rapidly spreading derriere and join a running club you will not impress your doctor and you won’t have nearly as much fun either. Filling your face with chocolate might sound like fun but the fact that so many of us pitch up on the early hours of a Saturday morning to plod or speed our way around Coral Springs and Parkland proves that there really is an alternative. We are the living proof. We have found the alternative and it lies amid the often moisture soaked, wee hours of the morning in the company of a few soggy friends. Oh, how we love it.

So, there it is. No real need to talk of New Year’s Resolutions. We do not need them, unless it involves a running goal we will stick to. Rather, we can simply keep on doing what we do. The year ahead will be filled with stories, training efforts and racing rewards; but above all we will have a heck of a lot of fun doing it because we are NWBRRC. We like to say ‘every runner counts !!!!’ To me that makes a lot of sense. Good luck to all of us in 2017.

Mark Darley aka Britrunner