Have a Jolly New Year

Counting the smiles and miles
with the Jolly Roger Club

By Paul Baltutis

 

As the New Year approaches, many of us look at January 1, 2007, as a time to assess our health and lifestyles. Some are content to maintain their fitness levels; some may want to increase their conditioning, and others want to "kick-start" their exercise activities. Everyone that plans on walking or running during the coming year would agree that a little positive reinforcement can go a long way. So with that in mind, I want to start a new mileage club in the greater San Antonio area. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to join our effort and account for your miles in 2007.

I got this idea from a T-shirt I recently purchased from Nike that reads "Pirate 2,000 Mile Club." The shirt is part of Nike's Prefontaine series and dates back to "Pre's" high school days in Coos Bay, Oregon. "Pre" attended Marshfield High School, whose team was called the Pirates. The track club there had a Pirate Run for your Life Club and made T-Shirts with various mileage thresholds. They would award T-Shirts to whomever reached these milestones

I am not sure how many of those T-Shirts Prefontaine collected, but the 2,000 mile shirt was one of his favorites. The 2,000 represented the training mileage he ran from 1967 to 1969, when he was a junior and senior at Marshfield High School. If you ever saw the movie Without Limits, starring Billy Crudup, you will see Prefontaine wearing this shirt on several training runs. It was the one he was wearing when he received a recruiting letter from legendary coach Bill Bowerman, who encouraged him to attend the University of Oregon. It was this letter that persuaded "Pre" to attend Oregon and propelled him toward his amazing running career.

The greater San Antonio-area club will be called the Jolly Roger 2000 Club, in honor of our fearless leader, Roger Soler, and to maintain the pirate theme. The counting of mileage for Jolly Roger will commence on January 1, 2007. All you have to do to join is contact any of our three San Antonio area stores. We will put your name on a master list, and you then forward your mileage count to us on the last day of each month in 2007. Details about the club will be provided on a flyer at the store and on our Web site.

We will keep a running tally for walkers and runners. There will be recognition posted on the Web site, along with other miscellaneous awards given out at 500, 1,000 and 1,500 miles, and, for those overachieving types, at 2,000 before the year's end. We hope that, with the success we expect in 2007, this program will continue year after year.

So shiver me some timbers and strap on your Nike + Ipod Nano's, pedometers, fancy-dancy GPS watches or whatever technology you use to determine your mileage covered, and be prepared for some swashbuckling fun. Remember, the further you go, the jollier it gets!

Paul Baltutis is the manager of Soler's Sports on 5933 Broadway in Alamo Heights. He is a certified marathon coach for Team in Training. He can be reached at (210) 930-3148 or at sage_run03@yahoo.com.