First CRC event - the Halloween party!

I recently joined the Charlotte Running Club as a way to re-assimilate myself into the local running community.  I realized this was a good idea as soon as I registered as I received a few e-mails giving me lists of every member in the club - several of whom I had made acquaintances with over the years - and of each fall marathon and which members were doing it.  I also exchanged several e-mails with co-founder Aaron Linz and found quick responses to my questions, which ranged from ideas about workout sites to reconnaissance for racing competition.  Finally, I also received a message from the chair of the "social committee" informing me that there is a monthly social gathering in the club and that October's gathering would of course be a Halloween party.

There is a marathon the weekend of Halloween - Philly, I believe - so the party would be held two weeks early.  For some reason I always dread Halloween, yet I always have a blast every time I manage to land a decent costume.  One year I was a gorilla and yes, I was running around on all fours growling at people and beating my chest.  Last year I was "Slimer" from Ghostbusters and yes, I left a trail of green slime (water-based paint that washed out easily) all over uptown/downtown/funkytown Charlotte.  My best friend Zak, who is about my size, told me he had a Batman costume that he would be willing to let me borrow, so I decided to check out the CRC "social."

I was well-aware that I was about to show up at this party knowing absolutely no one.  I have some friends who are technically members of the club but they aren't active.  I know Ben Hovis and John Compton but they are really just acquaintances.  However, I have spent enough time around runners over the years to know they are generally the most easy-going people in the world, so I was 100% confident I would somehow have a good time. 

I showed up around 10 or so and made a point to introduce myself to a few people before I put my Batman mask on.  One guy was dressed as a 1920's-era gangster and fired his fake gun at me several times before joking that the bullets just didn't work on Batman.  I recognized Caitlin Chrisman because I read her blog so I introduced myself and told her I was excited about getting to meet some of the people in the club.  Caitlin ran her first marathon recently, in Minneapolis I believe, and apparently qualified for the Olympic trials.  Wow.





I'm Batman!!  John Compton is a smelly pirate hooker.

 Compton was the only person there that I knew and he left about ten minutes after I got there, saying something about being tired from the morning's race.  He finished third in his 15k debut, the last race of the year in the Grand Prix series, which I plan to compete in next year if things go according to plan.  I met a guy named Billy Shue and another guy named Brian McMahon, both of whom are apparently very fast as well.  Billy and I talked at length about marathon training and made tentative plans to do some long runs together at some point.  He finished fifth in the Charlotte race last year and seems to have improved a good bit.  I think we can declare him one of the favorites to win it, folks. 
I met the "head of the social committee," Emily Barrett, and several of her friends and basically just had a blast getting to know everyone.  I did spend a good bit of time trying to figure out who-runs-what because, again, I didn't know any of these people yet and what else was I going to talk about?  All in all I was really impressed with how friendly everybody was and it's safe to say I have found myself in the midst of an awesome group of people.

A few more pics...

"Dora the Explorer" a.k.a. Emily Barrett, the CRC social chair....and a smiling
Billy Shue in the background.

The Dark Knight enjoyed mixing it up with various Tom Cruise characters.