shack track & field

this evening we attended our first shack track & field group run! it's a group run on the second tues of each month which meets at the battery park city shake shack. they've partnered with jack rabbit as well so there were some legacy jackrabbit runners as well as a JR liaison there. 

it was my brilliant idea to bike down from the office, but it really wasn't that pleasant, even with the bike lane going all the way down ninth ave. i think we were actually taunted by a non-citibike cyclist on a fixie blasting music from the boombox over his shoulder - what the heck! i always thought we cyclists needed to stick together, so much for cycling camaraderie. also there was a decent amount of horse dung on the bikelane (thanks, nypd) and a lot of left-turn only signals for cars going down ninth ave. with that said, i'm not sure the west side highway would be much more pleasant!

after 45 minutes of trekking downtown through the commuter cyclists, delivery guys, and car traffic, we made it down to tribeca. unbeknownst to us, the director of shake shack operations in the nyc-philly-dc area who started the shack track & field program in 2013, allan ng, came up from dc to join us for the run! kevin and i got a chance to chat with him and learned that the dc-metro area shack t&f runs usually consisted of +200 people, and they would do relays from the different shake shack locations and meet at one at the end of the run for high-fives and drinks. so cool!

it was a warm and muggy evening for a run (70F, 73% humidity), but a gorgeous night with fun company. we also got some advice about the 110th to 90th st portion of the nyc marathon, so we may have to go practice up there soon.

at the end of the five miles, shack track & field had a nice refreshment table set up with jugs of water and beer. and we even had our own separate line (NO LINE!!!!) for ordering! below are some of the highlights from the evening:

shack t&f runners don't do lines :p

monster dinner after a light run :p

best: browsing for cards at papyrus with daisy! i love stationary and i can  spend hours just taking in all the pretty designs, materials, and trinkets in stationary stores.

worst: i got seven bug bites while chomping on the shake shack - sitting outdoors. if you're friends with me, you don't ever need to buy mosquito repellent again!

smile: the other top contender in the office walkertracker challenge, michael freel, called me at my desk yesterday! i had given him "points", which are a way for employees to give positive reinforcement to each other through the challenge, and he had tried to give some back to me, but couldn't figure out how to do it. he left me with a few startling words: "it's not over yet ..." dang! i guess this means he's bringing up the heat!