Weekend Long Run: Ideas?

So running at night with our headlamps on Saturday was fun, but I would have done my run anyhow. Steven on the other hand, was mostly motivated by the novelty of the run. This got me thinking; if I can come up with some good ideas for runs like that, then maybe I can convince Steven and Israel to go with me more often. Who knows, maybe I could get several more friends to go on runs like that with me. I'm open to any suggestion people may have, and here's a short list of what I've come up with myself, or heard or people doing:

• Put cold beers out every 5 miles of a 15 or 20 mile run, then start and finish the run with one. After potentially drinking a whole six pack while doing 20 miles, you wouldn't care how bad you felt at the finish.

*Although some possible downsides might include getting stopped for public intoxication, stumbling into oncoming traffic, or having your beer come back up on the run. These could all make for a bad run.

• Have everyone dress up in costumes, like superheroes, or Halloween costumes, or old people. We would be laughing our way to the finish in embarrassment. Friends and acquaintances would surely stop to razz us.

*Can't think of any negatives here, except that in my experience you could dress up without realizing how cumbersome your costume actually is.

• Go buy a cheap stroller and put a big radio in it. Everyone love listening to their music, but it's hard to on a group run if you're trying to converse. This way, everyone can rock out to the same tunes while still conversing. I suppose people could take turns pushing the thing.

*May be too expensive to find a stroller that would actually hold up, and you may not all agree on the same music.

• Make it an extreme run! You could purposely draw the course so that it crosses obstacles every few miles, like big water-logged ditches, patches of rough terrain, areas that require some urban climbing, or run through one of those fitness parks where you have to do all the prescribed exercises they show you. Stuff that's fun, challenging and breaks the monotony of the long run.

*Someone could get injured and not be able to complete the run, and it might take considerable time to plan a run like that.


Well that's all I've got so far. If I come up with anything else worthwhile, I'll try to post it. I think I'm just going to do 10 this weekend anyway, but we'll see.