• Nothing threatening, hopefully •
[1½ MIN READ]
Naturally, newcomers (AKA newbies, noobs) have been a thing with the club since the beginning (1981). I was among them when I first started running with the club in 2012, before it was known as the Growlers and before Cerebruns came into being as a writing feature. A look back at these here little thought pieces (thoughtless?) that began in 2018 indicates that I was introducing noobs in various ways nearly back that far. I became more earnest toward the end of 2024. Shoshana was among the noobs since then and she’s the only one of some 7 who still regularly runs with the group.
(L-R: Jim-var [bottom half], Grace, Nico [front], noob Rita, J’Adam, Shoshana, Stacey, Jay-var [bottom half, back], CtCloser)
Hope springs eternal as we welcomed Rita last week (and who gave permission for me to feature her). We proceeded through our welcome protocol then ran our obligatory Sunset 5K route forward to introduce it as our favorite (iCandybyWangC.com and elsewhere unless otherwise stated). Originally from Baltimore, she studied at both Temple and Drexel and recently started working in Philadelphia as a lawyer. Wouldn’t you know that I studied at Drexel, too, just a little before she did; I as an academic librarian. Wouldn’t you know that she and I happened to be running with the one other lawyer among the Growlers, Stacey. There felt like a kind of fatefulness to her presence that run.
Of course, nothing changes about that feeling if she never attends again, but it will make a great Cerebrun a bunch of years from now if she does. As K2 learned, though, we assume nothing about persistence and never want to make it some like it’s obligatory. It’s not as if we have any control over it either way. Still, we do what we can to make noobs feel welcome. Note, though, that doing so can itself be counterproductive.
Back in 2019, a newcomer ran with the Growlers once and never came back. I learned from a mutual acquaintance that we were too serious for her. Huh. Well, not too serious for Shoshana.
–CtCloser (Calvinthe), “Negative split or positive splat” #dothedue
FINE PRINT ¶Text and photos (unless otherwise stated): Calvin Wang (Wäng), CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (CreativeCommons.org). ¶Cross-posted: (1) Facebook JRC Growlers Group Run (2026’05’20’W Run Message), (2) GGR email list, (3) Cerebruns by CtCloser. ¶This website posting: Cerebrun with added caption and enumeration.
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