In our last write up in this series I talked about the small get together I had about a week ago with some fans of the site here in the Okanagan. It was nothing too serious of course, with us getting together for some drinks, except none of the three of us actually drink.
At the end of the meeting I told them that they could stop by at any time, provided they give me a quick heads up, and yesterday one of them did exactly that. He came over, and we decided to head on down to the beach for a nice jog. Or at least I thought it was a nice jog. Turns out my partner in crime didn’t have any running shoes, and thought biking shoes were a good substitute. That ended up being not so wise of a decision, although he doesn’t own running shoes so he didn’t have much choice anyway.
The run down to the beach is a touch less than a mile. We ended up taking some breaks, as he was struggling a bit with the shoe situation and I wanted to stop and give him a breather. We ran together until that last part, which I sprinted, giving me a time just a shade over seven minutes, only about a minute slower than my usual time, and all while carrying a towel and running in my swimsuit.
I actually enjoyed the run more than usual, both because it’s fun to run with someone else, but also because the stopping and starting let me do a more sprint focused workout as opposed to a steady and grueling mile long endurance run. I finished about two minutes ahead of him, and used that time to catch my breath and enjoy the gorgeous geography around me.
He went to the bathroom, and I invited us both to a volleyball game that was happening in a sandy area just a bit removed from the beach. I had noticed that two guys were having a one on one game, and I asked if they wanted to play 2v2. Then some kerfuffle occurred where other people started wanting to play and some people started playing while others stepped out. Finally my buddy hops out of the bathroom and says he’d rather not play, so we went down to the beach and hopped in the surprisingly warm lake.
It was altogether quite pleasant, although I sort of wished we had brought a ball to throw around and I had a second pair of goggles to give to him. Even without, I enjoyed swimming around checking out the beautiful natural hills and valleys that make up Lake Okanagan.
We got out, finally got around to playing volleyball only to find out that we were too bad to really get a proper game going. And not just us. It ended up being a 5v4 game, and pretty much whomever managed to get their serve into the other side won 90% of the time. Volleyball is fun, but when you’re this bad it does get kind of lame when one side starts racking up the score until they accidentally serve into the net.
With that it was time to run back. Knowing that he was struggling with the shoe situation I intentionally took quite a few more breaks, including a leisurely stroll down a smaller beach partway between our starting destination and the beach we ended up at. We ran together before I once again sprinted the finish, with him sprinting as best he could in those shoes and finishing just behind me. All in all, it was a pretty well spent hour.
After that I ended up making a prawn and rice dish, delicious if I do say so myself, I taught him how to play chess, and then I retired to go finish my work on the site for the day. He stayed over and in the morning we went to a 9:00 AM Yoga class on the dock. Once again I must share a picture of the beautiful majesty of Lake Okanagan.
Although our yoga class was, unfortunately, pretty much entirely middle aged ladies. We both enjoyed the class, the absence of hot yoga babes not really being of the utmost importance to us, and that was it. I have to go all the way back down to the Lower Mainland for a protest which I’ll write about later on this very site, so it’s hard for me to say where I’ll be organizing the next meetup. But what I can say is that I’m looking forward to getting together for more IRL events with the readers, as we slowly get politically organized.
The only picture I got of this whole thing was one I took of this kid digging through the center of the universe on the beach.
I’ve praised Active Club before. I’ve also said that I don’t really want just a fitness and workout club. I’ve wanted political action for a long time now, and I’m not that big on just working out with a group of likeminded goys. Having said that, I had a great time, and I think this kind of thing is great, especially as a sort of icebreaker for more tangible political action.
If nothing else it’s nice to have a wingman. You know, for the running.
