I hate running, but I love my run club

I’m turning 40 in October.

My body has taken some bruising in its 39.8 years on this planet. I’m the middle of three boys who wrestled with his brothers every day and played ice hockey, roller hockey and rugby. As a photojournalist, I regularly hauled between 25 - 40 pounds on my back while I went up and down New York City subway steps and hustled in and out of crouching positions that would strain my knees like nobody’s business.

And even before I had all of these bad excuses, I hated running.

So when my dear friends started a run club on Adams Avenue, my first instinct was: “sorry guys, not in a million years.”

Peer pressure is a hell of a drug.

One day, I joined my wife, who is training for the NYC Marathon, for my first run in over a year. The 2.9 mile slog was … a slog. But the Adams Run Club’s organizers gave me a branded sticker — I was part of the club now. One of my kids put the sticker on my laptop for all the world to see. Now I had to run, lest I be a poser.

So now, Friday mornings I have a new tradition. It’s perfectly timed — business is getting busy at Uptown 11 Studios and I know I need the exercise to stay focused.

Having a community of people to run with makes me hate running just a little bit less. It makes me move my body in ways I told myself I couldn’t. And isn’t that the point of community? To lift each other up and do things together we couldn’t accomplish alone.

Adams Run Club has a slogan that I picked up on pretty quickly.

“We Run Together.”

Adams Run Club meets weekly on Fridays at 7 a.m. at bica, 3569 Adams Avenue, San Diego, CA, 92116. Stay up to date with the schedule at adamsrunclub.com.