One of the biggest changes I've seen in our sport is group running. Before the mid-'70s running boom, Alan Sillitoe's book title "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" described most of the miles we logged: alone, with occasional training runs with friends.

Today - for me, at least - it's reversed. During the week I run with a group called Wally's Wabbits; on Saturdays I set out with the Cass River Runners, my friends from Frankenmuth; then on Sundays I run with a Davison-based group, coordinated by Stu Allen and Earl Gilpin, called The Grinders. It is rare I run by myself these days.

The value of group runs transcends their social aspect. Friends are what keep many runners going. If they had to run alone, they just wouldn't do it - especially in winter.

The following tale describes a typical weekend winter run by The Grinders, and why such endeavors work. I had been looking forward to this particular run, but when Sunday morning arrived I didn't want to get out of bed. Coffee, I needed coffee. I was meeting the group at the Davison Athletic Club; nearby it was Crissy's, one of my favorite coffee stops. That was the impetus that moved my bag of bones from the bed to my van.

As I drove, I thought how it might be a good winter morning for a run. The van's thermometer said 40 degrees and there was no snow on the roads. Pulling into the parking lot, I saw five pickups and no Grand Ams. That was a sign this would be a "man's run."

I did not see my running buddy, George, who had said he'd be here. When I called his cell phone, he didn't answer. I left a message: "Hey, you S.O.B., where you at?"

It was now 8 a.m., T minus zero and time to hit the road, except we always wait a few minutes for stragglers. Why is it always the same people? A couple more guys showed up, including George, who is never late.

"Did you hit any rain driving here?" he asked.

"You mean you-had-to-use-your-wipers kind of rain?"

He said, "Yeah," but I didn't want to hear and ignored his answer. "Are we ready to go? It's time," shouted Stu, our ringleader. This is always a cue for an even-later-straggler to show up. Sure enough, into the parking lot pulled Liz. Nine guys would surely wait another two minutes for a woman to join us.

"I'll be the lone chick runner today," she said as we punched our chronographs and began moving. Twenty feet began pounding pavement.

The stopwatches hadn't made it to one minute before George asked, "Did you feel rain?"

"Shut up about the rain, will ya?" I replied. Then I felt drops too. Already the fair-weather runners were talking of cutting their 10-milers short. Before we reached a mile, the cold rain really started coming down.

Running in the rain in summer is sometimes enjoyable. There's little problem, unless shoes get soaked and a bit uncomfortable. But here our full winter running ensembles grew drenched and clung to our sweating skin. Forty degrees felt like 20,

"Seems like this rain should be ice," said someone. The wind, which we hadn't felt before, now seemed like 25 mph. Stu, the brain of our water- logged group, suggested we turn at the next road and run the route the opposite way - into the wind, so we'd have it easier coming back. Thank goodness we did it. I can't imagine our run being worse than it ended up. The onslaught of wind and rain was now in our faces. We battled it for a mile and a half to where water and Gatorade were stashed. As if that's what we needed; we could have opened our mouths, going into the wind, and drowned. We were three miles into our weekly long run and already it felt like we'd run the Detroit Free Press Marathon's underwater mile without the help of the Windsor Tunnel.

Stu, Liz and others decided to head back to the barn. George, two others (who will go unnamed to protect their sanity) and I chose to try to make it an eight-mile run. Before separating we hatched a plan to meet back at Liz's place, only a half-mile from the athletic club. She said she'd make coffee; George said he'd stop at Tim Horton's to get bagels. We could look forward to these two things if we survived.

Except it was not what I'd planned. The reason I had gotten out of bed was that in my head I could smell Crissy's Cafe Americano. I would just have to deal with my disappointment as George, Ed Strang and Frank Hazen (Oops, I wasn't going to mention those guys' names, was I?) and I headed east, while Stu and Liz headed north. "At least we won't be running into the wind anymore," George noted.

The road we now were on was gravel and icy from packed snow of past weeks. It was hard finding footing for the next three miles. As we danced eastward on the ice, we heard a thump and turned to see Ed sliding headfirst on his belly toward the rest of us. "Safe!" shouted Frank. Twenty seconds later George went down again. If he kept this up, he would break Ricky Henderson's stolen-base record.

We turned and ran north a mile, and George stated the obvious: that the wind and rain were less bad going this direction. Just when we began to warm up in our rain-saturated clothes, we turned west and the wind changed directions: into our faces. But we hung in there for three more miles and returned alive.

I changed into the dry clothes I always keep in my van. Ninety percent of my runs are from my vehicle, so why not keep all my clothes there? It's great how a guy always has a dressing room with a van.

Back at Liz's house we talked about how heroic we were, with no one suggesting what we really had been was stupid. I sipped my Cafe Americano (yes, I'd stopped at Crissy's in order to make things right in my head) and ate brownies while others did the same. Well, some did; others had bagels and soymilk. The group broke down into subgroups, the organic-food faction vs. the Whopper-and-onion-ring faction.

Sophie, Liz's yappy bulldog, tried to make her point, whatever that was. Whatever my side was, I'm sure Sophie's was "Au contraire!" That dog barks incessantly, or at least just when I'm around.

The pro-junk-food faction's discussion was now in the "best places to buy donuts in the world" stage. Yes, this run had run its course and was ready to end.

We said our goodbyes and thanked our hostess for letting us invade. Sophie had the last word, or bark, as the door closed.

Group runs, such as this, will be remembered years later because of the camaraderie. Even bad-weather runs, though cursed at the time, will be treasured as time passes.

United we ran, divided we'd have stayed in bed. MR