Runners take it on the chin
There has been quite a bit of talk about replacing the bricks on the Downtown Mall, but why not look into filling the holes on the downtown sidewalks?
Baby Pink took a nasty fall on Saturday when her foot got caught in a hole that appeared to once house a metal pole.
Good thing BP was a spry athlete and not a frail person. That said, Baby Pink still suffered a concussion, plus cuts and scrapes on her chin and hands.
But being the trouper that she is, the youngest member of our running-biking-kayaking-bowling-eating-drinking-sumo wrestling-book club joined us on Sunday to test out the waters for a sport that involved balls and sticks.
We dove into pool.
It was actually our second attempt at billiards. But at $16 an hour, we discovered that the bowling alley was not the most cost effective place for a band of rookies to practice. We did come up with an interesting way for five to play. The person who dropped in the eight ball had to sit out the next game.
Usually, that meant the winner.
Poor Easy Deb. “I will never get to sit out!” she bemoaned.
At least she didn’t shoot the cue ball completely off the table, like someone — who I will call “me.”
But Sunday our number increased to 10 as we headed to Two Sides. Unfortunately, it was the same day they had scheduled a pool tournament. So we only got to knock the stripes and solids around for an hour before we decide to extend our play day to Rapture.
Our skill sets varied from the “Very OK” to the “No, No. Hit the white ball.”
But by the end of the afternoon, and three pitchers of beverages later, the talents of the OKs and the No-Nos had evened out considerably.
You do, however, learn a lot more about the people you run around with when you face new challenges.
Trish and I have run stride-for-stride for years now, but Sunday I discovered that she is … left handed. So is Jen!
Not that I would have noticed, because — it’s true — I can’t tell my left from my right. I heard somebody say it.
But amazingly, we all get along.
We even decided that the best way to save money at this new game was to buy our own table and put it in Fast Kathy’s house.
Now, we just have to let Fast Kathy and her husband know.
Posted by Mary Alice Blackwell at 02:35 PM. Filed under:
Mary Alice Blackwell was a sportswriter for 11 years before turning in her scorebook to cover cops and courts. The Virginia Tech Hokie joined the staff of The Daily Progress in 1987 and has spent the past dozen or so years writing about actors, musicians, artists, authors and, occasionally, her running buddies. 
