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Getting Acquainted: Team RWB

This post will probably be shorter than it should be.  After all, I've only actually met up with Team Red, White, and Blue (RWB) four times, twice in San Antonio and now twice in San Angelo.  The first time I had ever heard of Team RWB was during the San Antonio Rock N Roll Marathon in 2012 or 2013.  I don't exactly remember which year, but I do remember seeing a group of people wearing "The Eagle" and passing an American flag between themselves while running.  Later, I heard of a Team RWB trail running camp while listening to an episode of the Trail Runner Nation Podcast.  I didn't think much of it beyond how fun/grueling that week would likely be.  Additionally, I saw volunteers at various San Antonio road and trail races sporting Team RWB shirts.
Team RWB, from my understanding and what I can glean from their website (teamrwb.org), is all about connecting veterans with their local community through exercise.  A way to make sure that veterans aren't forgotten about, really.  Membership is about 50-50 between veterans and civilians, but many civilians that I have met have some sort of tie to the military.  They set up consistent fitness and social events as well as do volunteer work.
I didn't actually get involved with Team RWB until my friend Anthony talked to me about them.  Anthony, a running friend that I knew from Carrera and IAAP, was also a member of RWB.  When we got talking about off season runs, he suggested meeting up on a Wednesday night.  I signed up online, showed up, and we went for a run on the Riverwalk.  I recognized a few faces from the local running community and was warmly welcomed.  As it was there normal Wednesday meetup, I came back once more before I had to leave for San Angelo.
San Antonio's RWB group was different from what I was used to in that the runs weren't as goal oriented.  The whole point was being there together.  We were there, sure, to run, but more for the beer(s) afterward.  It was for building and maintaining meaningful relationships.

One of the main reasons that I joined while still in San Antonio was so that I would have an automatic go-to group in San Angelo.  I would already have some sort of idea on how the group would work and what to expect.  What I wasn't expecting was the difference in activities.  Whereas San Antonio seemed to have a heavy run focus, San Angelo has a few weekly kayaking trips.  We have yet to take advantage of them, but it's going to happen within the next few weeks.  We "finally" met up with RWB's San Angelo chapter at a Thursday night social.
 We walked in as strangers, not recognizing a single face from the real world (I recognized a couple from Facebook but does that REALLY count?).  Just as in San Antonio, we were immediately welcomed and enjoyed our time with complete strangers.  I have since ended up starting a push up challenge (20,000 push ups in 92 days, only 15,700 more!) team and will most likely end up joining a RWB run across America run team.  Tonight, Mila and I met up with RWB for our first run.  Just as in San Antonio, it was more "Hey cool, you're here!   Let's go run whatever!" than "OK, today you're going to run X distance at X pace on this certain route." and that's just perfect for my heart rate training.
Training update:  Even with the heat (88), hill, and stopping to walk/check on Mila, I set 1 mile (10:03) and 2 mile (21:01) PRs!  I'm almost to the point where I could pass my PT test (14:00 for 1.5 miles) in just my aerobic zone!

I didn't get the greatest pics from our run, but here's a couple:
You can just see George coming in the red


There's Mila riding away from me

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