Language Immersion Programs

I was thinking about my spoiled children, and realized how spoiled I am.

I live in one of the BEST running (small) cities in the country.  I'm being serious for a change.  I was just reading the local Road Runners newsletter for last month (homework/cleaning/holiday avoidance) over breakfast and wow.  It is very well written for a small publication.  It's about the same size as the daily newspaper in Bermuda, but.... did I mention how the RRRC publication is well written?  So, I'm a month behind.  I have a 4.0...  if I wasn't at least a month behind on my magazine subscriptions we'd be worried.

Anyhoo....  In it was a tribute to what makes Richmond such a great running town.  The article listed 5 things.

If I had to choose only ONE thing that makes Richmond a great running town, it might have to be Sportbackers.  Truly.  Sportsbackers works hard to make running THE topic of conversation for 8 months of the year.  I arrived in Richmond, having lived in VA for most of my life, only to discover that I didn't speak the language of Richmond.

I was not Running Second Language.

If you're not running, or married to a runner, or know a runner... then you're not going to be able to follow along with conversations at parties in Richmond.  I'm serious, because a few years ago:

I was not a runner.  

not married to a runner.

didn't really know any runners.

and all I could do at parties was rely on someone else to please-god-change-the-subject-to-something-I-know-and-understand.

It makes me wonder if I would have ever taken up running if we'd moved to DC, Atlanta, or Phoenix instead of Richmond.  That was the short list when my husband was taking interviews.  Without the constant immersion of hearing about the Monument Ave 10K race here in March, followed by constantly hearing about people training for the 8K/Marathon in November, followed again by that stupid 10K and "enough already, why are you people all talking about running that 10K again, didn't you already RUN it ALREADY???  I could never run that far.  Ever.  In my life."  

I just think about that now and laugh to myself.  I'm so lucky that THAT WASN'T TRUE!


A little side note here, but I wonder what else I've ever said about my own limitations that wasn't true...

I'm lucky to have found myself in such a community of runners.  Runners are GREAT people.  Selflessly selfish.  It's an oxymoron of stupid proportion.  But -

A runner will selflessly give you their last kleenex.

A runner will selfishly take 3 hours for themselves to go run.

What brought me to running?  T.  TMB brought me to running.

What else brought me to running?  A lucky break on landing in a city where the second language spoken is Running.