Coffee and negativity

Wednesday, December 03, 2014 · Mike Davis

Good morning, Fill your mug up with some hot coffee or even some hot tea and pull up a chair. This morning the conditions seem pretty dangerous outside with an icy walkway which means icy roads most likely. If you are reading this before heading out the door, please be careful both walking and most definitely driving. Getting back to coffee for a moment; if you are looking for a great tasting and healthy coffee, I highly recommend stopping at Hanniford and buying "Adventurous Joe" Guatemala Medium organic coffee. I have spent a great deal of time researching coffee and studies have found that the right choice of coffee not only provides great anti occident's, but can also be performance enhancing. Yes, if you drink a couple of cups a couple hours before a run, you may help your running! Your choice of coffee is important because of the extreme amounts of pesticides that non-organic growers use. So if possible drink a medium blend organic and shade grown coffee. One last piece of advice, studies find that if you go with buying coffee beans and only grinding them as you use them, your coffee will hold the many anti-occident's longer. I grind about 4 days worth at a time right now, but that's only because my on demand coffee grinder/maker is in storage. Last night on my drive home from work I can honestly tell you that if I had been planning to run solo, I would not have run! The temperatures were cold and with darkness moving in quickly, the motivation to go out and run was nil! Thankfully I had a group that would be awaiting me and I am also the organizer of that group so obviously I had no choice but to get dressed in my winter running gear and get over to the "7th Settlement Brewery" and hope that no one showed up, so I could go back home and stay in my cozy apartment. Of course my wife was with me, but if no one showed up I think we both would have been happy to have dinner there and forego the run. As I pulled into a parking spot, I quickly knew we would not be getting out of the run as we saw one of our group heading toward our meeting place. Now I was kind of bummed, because I figured we would have only a couple of runners and that's not a lot of fun. My negative thoughts were quickly squished as we congregated in the waiting area of the Settlement and by 6:00 we had a total of 11 runners! Amazingly the only runners that weren't there, were runners that couldn't make it for legitimate reasons. I was quite impressed and while still not looking forward to going back outside, I knew that I wanted to get us out there quickly and get moving. Once we got running all of my negative thoughts dissipated quickly and I couldn't think of anything else I would rather have been doing! The temps were definitely chilly but after a mile or so I was comfortable and then we passed a house all lit up with Christmas lights and my joy raised up even more. Some of the group did around 6 miles, while others ran around 4, before we all met back up at the Settlement and enjoyed some beverages and a few of us stayed for dinner. What a great night! Truth be told I am more of an solo runner, but this group is going to help me this winter and I am so thankful for them last night. We will be doing this all winter and there is no cut off date for joining us, so come on out on either Tuesday nights or Saturday mornings. Time to go navigate the roads. Have a great Wednesday and see you on Friday! Mike