Jun 5 Run: 21st and Penn for a Strip Run

Meet at the Liberty Commons Parking lot at 21st and Penn for what should be a fun run in the Strip. The section of the trail by the convention center is complete and it is the last day that the big Cirque du Soleil tent will be up so lots to see. I am sad I won't be there (first sprint race of the season) so take good notes!

Sunday's run was a fine one - through Frick Park, the community gardens and the cemetery. The cemetery was all decked out for memorial day making the run holiday appropriate. We lingered long over coffee feeling those first drowsy days of summer approaching. The anticipation of vacation dies hard even after years of being away from school.

Some recommendations for area nurseries:

Brenkles Farm and Green Houses in Troy Hille: http://www.brenckle.com/

Amazing variety of annuals, perennials and vegetables spread out over lots of green houses. The plants are very healthy and the prices reasonable. Plus it is worth the little drive to get there - a bit of the country in the city!

McTighes Nursery in Glenshaw (up route 8) - it has a beer distributor attached so you can kill two errands at the same time!

May 29, 30 Runs: Commonplace Coffee

With all this cool, wet weather it is difficult to believe that next weekend is the Memorial Day Holiday. Since many people will be traveling we will save all the interesting runs for later in the summer: meet at Commonplace Coffee on both days for close to home runs.
On holidays we let everyone sleep in so Monday meet at 7:30AM.


As usual, Tom lead us on a thoughtfully planned run - this one was in retaliation for the stadium run that never happened  - baseball was the link that tied the various stops. While it was outrageously hilly, it did mean that we could pause for moments to check out the view or the point of interest. Plus we found some new hidden parts of Oakland that were worth the climb.  Here is the route from PtB:
http://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/view/35068694
As she said it seemed a lot longer than 4 miles!

Jan's Chiropractor, Bill Marino, stopped by for coffee. He is a runner and is recommended by Jan so if you are looking for this kind of help check him out at 412.421.0783.

New iPhone tip for actually closing applications you don't want running in the background (these would be the ones you don't use often):
Removing the Application from the Recents List There's actually a much simpler approach for quitting apps, and that's to use your recent app list. Double-click the home button to display the recently accessed applications. Press and hold any of the icons shown, then navigate to the application you want to quit and tap the red circled minus button. This sends a signal to the application in question that allows it to quit. The application will be re-added to the recents list the next time you launch it.

May 22 Run: Phipps for a Tom's Special

Meet at Phipps for one of Tom's specialty runs - or at least something mildly interesting.

I got this quick report from Pam Murray about today's run:
we four did the Chatam drizzle to the rock band
Which sounds both cryptic and interesting!


For those of you running the 1/2 marathon - I looked very hard at 32nd and Liberty and missed most of you (I did however see many rowers - strange)! I guess this is not surprising given the amazing number of people that were running at the 2 mile mark. It was inspiring and humbling to watch those waves of people stream by. I hope you all had the race you wished for.

May 15 Run: CommonPlace or something else

The regular run will meet at the CommonPlace coffee shop for a group selected run.  

Note that it will be Marathon Sunday and many in the group are participating. A few of us (well two of us) were thinking about ways we could intercept the 1/2 marathon and cheer everyone on. Unfortunately the 1/2 marathon starts at 7AM making it difficult to run to the course and leave at the regular time. So if you are up for an adventure and an earlier start, meet at the Morewood street parking lot at CMU (one of the few places you can drive to and still be able to get back to the East End) at 6:30AM and we will run down to 32nd and Liberty. This is the 2 mile mark so everyone will be perky.  It will be about 5 miles from start to finish but of course the return will be all up hill :-(. Please send email to me (Anne Jane: annejane@gmail.com) if you think you will be there.

The Race for the Cure was last Sunday so only 5 of us showed up for a quieter but still supportive run. We took a pleasant loop hitting many Squirrel high points (literally - there were lots of hills!), including Frick Park and the cemetery. It really was a lovely spring run with a pleasant chat over coffee where we only talked about 1 iPhone app.

May 8 Run: CommonPlace Coffee or Race for the Cure

This coming Sunday, Mother's Day, those not running in the Race for the Cure will meet at our default event location, CommonPlace Coffee for a "whatever we choose" run.


While today was not meant to be an adventure run it turned into one. It started out innocently enough, we ran through Squirrel Hill all decked out for spring and down into Panther Hollow to Greenfield. As always we blithely ignored the "Stairs Closed" sign at the foot of the very long staircase (good exercise for the quads and butt) up the hill to St. Rosalia's Academy. About 1/2 way there were no more stairs! Granted the steps that had been there had some gaps but they were still claimable. Faced with retracing our route (yuck) or moving forward, this intrepid band scaled the very steep hill-side studded with glass with not one injury or pulled muscle. Look for a link to photos commemorating the climb.


Sharon, PtB and Iain joined us for the usual rowdy coffee hour. Discussion topics ranged from the Royal Wedding to a recommendation for the very long series of novels, Game of Thrones: enough reading (or listening) to last a long time.


Finally a reminder that Sunday, May 15 is the Pittsburgh Marathon. Quite a few of the members are running some or all of it.