I sat outside in the beer garden at The Hideout, and looked over at some of the old concrete topped tables that were made by Larry Deliefde back when The Hideout was The Hair of the Frog Brewery. On a cool fall day back in 2003, my co-instigator Shawn Sweet and I had called a meeting of a bunch of our Grand Rapids Running Club friends. We were looking for ideas about putting on a marathon in Grand Rapids.

They had known Shawn and I for putting on small, fun races which generally started and ended at some of our local breweries. The Shawn and Don 5K, the Frogger 5.5K, The Gate Crasher, Run So Others Can Roll, and the Cinco de Mayo Run for the Border. We decided that it was time to get serious and do something really cool.

We came away from that meeting with lots of ideas. We had figured out a date. We soon made a leap of faith, put the event on the running calendars and started taking registrations.

What a great time that was.

I sat in the beer garden, thinking about that time, and all of the great times and great friends who have come along as a result of decisions made that night.

What an awesome time that was! Every year, on the Friday night before the marathon, I spend from 4:00 – 7:00 or so out there, and I invite several thousand of you out for a beer. I hope that this coming Friday a few of you can join me at The Hideout just to be at the place where we did the initial planning for our event.

You can even buy me a beer if you want.  🙂

EIGHT DAYS. LOVE YOU PEOPLE.

See you at the finish line.