The Original Walsh Family Beer Runner

Got up with the 5:45am alarm this morning, and while the binge eater in me is ready for a good calorie burn, the fankle pains are telling me to take a rest day. While I'm deciding what to do, I'll share something with you:

That's my dad and me, above (not last night. Sometime in the 80s, in case that track suit didn't make it clear). Dudley is the original Walsh Family Beer Runner. I remember watching him in local Turkey Trots and thinking it was badass (before I even knew what badass was) that he participated in the Greenwich Bushwhack cross-country race, bounding over hay bails and through ankle deep mud puddles. And then, when I was old enough, I was invited to join him to participate in what became a turning point in my own beer running career: The Boilermaker.

If you've never run the Boilermaker, you should. Not because Utica, NY is a particularly nice place (though they certainly need your tourism dollars), or because running up a golf course hill in blinding July sun is a pleasant experience, but because this is the quintessential beer race. Billed as the world's largest 15K. the Boilermaker was the first race I ran with "Elites." When I say "with" I obviously don't mean side-by-side, but the race is significant enough, in distance and in crowd draw, that runners from all over the world compete. And when they are done competing, they drink.

Hell, even before they compete, they drink. Or at least that's how my family does it. The day before the race, after packet pick-up and hotel check-in, we would travel to the Saranac Brewery for a brewery tour, which any of us could have lead, we'd be on it so many times (that said, the term "dry hopping" never gets old. It's like dry humping, people!).

Here we are (Mike C, Dudley, me, and my sister Liz) witnessing the miracle of dry hopping. Or something.

After the tour, we would go upstairs to the tasting room. Let me tell you, the fine folks at Saranac don't mess around. 2 full pints complimentary. Once, while we were enjoying our Pilsners and Black & Tans, two older gentlemen starting chatting up my sister and me, asking how long we'd been Boilermakers, whether we'd been on the tour before, etc. When we explained we were old hands at the tour and tasting combo at Saranac, the men reached into their pockets and pulled out no fewer than 40 complimentary drink tickets, saved up over years and years of Boilermaker weekends. Creepy old-man beer runners: I salute you.

Couple quick programming notes before I wish you a happy Friday:

1) Nina's coming to NYC today. Woohoo!!!

2) My buddy Michael is also running the B.A.A. 5K up in Beantown on Marathon weekend, but since he's a better human than me, he's doing it for charity. But not just "wahh, wahh, write me a check so we can all feel good." Michael's running in a skirt (and sports bra?) to support Susan Komen and ladies (and their tatas) everywhere. If you want to see Michael in a skirt, or just want to support ladies and our knockers, visit Michael's website.

And with that, adieu.