Rum Happenings

Tomorrow is the Rum Runners Relay. I'll be running for the Halifax Running Club 'A' team, winners of the eponymous Rum barrel these last two years. For some teams RRR is a bit of a lark, a 14 hour, 110km long rolling party on old Rte 3. I understand that "taking it seriously" is almost enough to get you turfed from some teams. For other teams, less so. I rather suspect HRC-A are in the second category given the club is gunning for a three-peat this year. The first year HRC-A won the barrel, the competition was from Les Garçons de Pierre et St Miquleon and frankly it would have been a closer race if les Garçons hadn't accumulated so many penalties, seemingly at a leg-by-leg rate. Last year the race wasn't so close, or so it seemed from the relative comfort of the tech crew convoy. This year however, we've been promised the "Oxford At 8" (or as I heard them referred to recently "Oxfools at 8 minutes behind us") team will have us in their sights. The trash-talking is reaching high-school proportions and if we're not careful the team captains will be coordinating a fight behind the cafeteria after final bell.

Your's truly is strapping on Leg #1, less an ego-boost (give the fast bloke the opener) as it is practical: I'll be on my plates doing rules enforcement for the rest of the day and the club need a good run from each runner given the relatively unknown quality of the competition; at least we knew where we stood with the "Descendants" (guaranteed kicking). Speaking of kickings, as for my chances, don't expect a repeat of previous RRR success, (see Tyler below trying to shoot me with a make-believe ray-gun). I don't think a summer of standing in TZ giving out complimentary TNS handlebar plugs is going to be much help when the lactic kicks in and the Oxfool kicks off with a kilometre to go. No, I'm thinking it'll be a more tactical race (beat the Oxfool) than a flat out vomitathon (a la Enfield, Antigonish, Cobequid, Berwick, Cole Harbour ad nauseum). Oh, and I hope I don't get girled too badly.

It'll be pitch black on this years leg!

So, in honour of RRR, the socksnob's first Sock Of The Week is the humble running sock. No tennis or field-hockey socks here please, nothing that will fall down in bunches around your ankles like Jennifer Beal's legwarmers in Flashdance. You want that ruched ankle look, go back to the eighties, RRR is tomorrow! So we'll be going with a light mesh sock, plain white with just a makers logo and not too long, only a couple of centimetres above the talus. If Audrey Hepburn was a runner, she'd have worn something like this. Classy, timeless, easy.

You just can't go wrong with a sock like this. Discuss

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