Reposting from The Flying Irish Facebook page:

On Monday Night at 6:30, all running stores around the nation will be holding a run in honor of the victims from the Boston Marathon. In conjunction with The Spokane Distance Project, The Flying Irish, and The Bloomsday Road Runners Club a 2.62mile run will be hosted beginning at the “Joy of Running” Statues in Riverfont Park. This is a run to show solidarity for runners and be a visual image that will show the strength and community of runners, and all are welcome. In addition, later next week Runners for Boston shirts will be available for $20 with 100% of the money going to the Onefundboston.org. Thank you all for making us so proud of our community of runners, your compassion in the wake of this tragedy has been amazing, we look forward to seeing you Monday night at 6:30. Also, we will be extending our shoe drive until then so if you haven't dropped off your shoes yet this is your last chance!

Yeah, I know, it's a little late to be saying this … but only now is the realization settling in: Gonzaga basketball teams, both men and women, for the 2012-2013 season: R.I.P.

I'm pretty sure this is one of the coolest Spokane summer job opportunities available. 

BORROWED FROM THE BING'S FACEBOOK PAGE:

TONIGHT!
Watch the Zags in the FINAL WCC game at 6pm at the Bing. 

It's free.
It's in HD. There is surround sound. 
So, unless you're IN Vegas, I really don't see a better way to watch the game.

The #1 Zags take on #2 St. Mary's at 6. The game airs on ESPN and AM 1510 … But don't sit home alone in front of your little TV (or radio). Grab some fellow Zag fans and head to the Bing. Victory loves company!

Some people just can't stop, um, singing Gonzaga's praises.

On Saturday, the statue of Bing Crosby seemed welcome to the sentiment shouting out from the wall behind it.

Beautiful. This gorgeous homage to bringing home No. 1 hits the stands tomorrow. Get yours. It's a winner!

And I don't mean just Bing Crosby, who grew up in Spokane and attended Gonzaga University for a couple of years before going off to become a show-business sensation. No, I mean the theater, which will be showing the GU-BYU men's basketball game tonight at 8. For free.

Say again, for free.

The theater's doors open at 7. And an array of drinks, including wine and beer, will be on sale. Given the fact that the theater seats nearly 750, plenty of seats should be available whenever you show up, but you might want to get there early. GU handled BYU fairly easily when they two teams played at the McCarthey Center Jan. 24. But fate hasn't been kind to teams ranked No. 2 this season.

Whatever, you heard it here first: Go Zaga!

If you're excited about this year's Gonzaga University men's basketball team, Tuesday might be your lucky day. New tickets are being made available to the team's Dec. 15 game against Kansas State. Tickets to the so-called Battle in Seattle are available at the KeyArena box office, Ticketmaster.com, and all Ticketmaster outlets. Click here for more information.

We ran anyway. And it was awesome.

The Lantern Tap House started a Tuesday night running club in September. So far I've made it to 3 runs. So far I've loved every one. Tonight was a costume run. I forgot. But my friend Stephanie managed to capture this trick shot. See … I'm a running ninja. Or a mustachioed tree sprite? Maybe a pink-cheeked Wooly Willy.

Whatever. I spent the evening running through the rain and sharing a couple tasty pints with friends .. if there's a costume for contentedness, it would look like me. Only maybe a little less soggy.

The running club will hit the streets around the Perry neighborhood every Tuesday at 6 until at least Thanksgiving. Come play with us?

But NFL Happy Hour specials? I'll take 'em every time!

Get your personal mini keg at Bag O Nails Pub at the corner of Trent and Argonne.

Above: The Museo de Fotebol covers each year of World Cup history.

We citizens of the United States tend not to treasure what we call soccer, which the rest of the world knows as football (or futebol in Poruguese). Yeah, we let our kids play it, and we celebrate when our women win world championships or Olympic gold.

But, really, the rest of the time most of us just complain about it. Not enough scoring, we say. Just a bunch of guys kicking a ball around for no apparent reason, we add.

OK, I don’t agree. Maybe it’s because I’ve spent some time in Italy, where calcio (pronounced “cal-cho”) as they call it is more important than tales of Silvio Berlusconi’s love life. Or, clearly, anything remotely resembling an Italian national budget.

I once sat with my wife Mary Pat in Florence’s stadium and watched the local team come back from a 0-1 deficit to score the go-ahead goal in the final minutes, winning 2-1 over the team from Napoli. And I screamed every bit as loudly as the Florentine fans sitting around us.

So a couple of days ago I walked from our hotel to the Pacaembu Museo do Futebol, the museum that is attached to the $15 million Estadio Pacaembu, Sao Paulo’s municipal football stadium.

General admissions is 6 reales, equivalent to about $3 (though I got half-price senior admission). And I would have paid five times that much. From the moment you are greeted by a bigger-than-life-size video of Pele welcoming you, to the moment you step past the area where children are practicing their goal-kicking skills against a life-size digital goalie, the Museo do Futebol is an engaging experience.

I can’t decide which was my favorite part: the room that celebrated every World Cup match by pairing the game with the world events of the time, the room where a number of football experts describe their favorite goals (with subtitles in most major languages) or the giant room that with 20 or more huge video screens and a sound system U2 would admire gives you the virtual feel of an actual championship game.

My legs are still aching from the several-kilometer trek, up and down the steep Sao Paulo hills. But that was just another benefit that the museum provided.

I imagine Pele’s legs ached even worse after any one of his games.

In May of 1976, I spent 10 days taking trains through Scotland. I hit Edinburgh, St. Andrew's, Pitlochry, Inverness, the Isle of Skye and Glasgow before ending up back in Edinburgh. And it was a terrific time.

The closest I've been to Scotland since has been to British Columbia, Canada, where in some spots you can still hear a Scottish brogue. But a bit of Scotland is coming to Spokane, as it does annually, on Saturday, Aug. 4, when the 54th Spokane HIghland Games will take place at the Spokane County Fairgrounds.

Should be fun. Wonder if they'll be serving haggis.

Oliver Staley, my former Spokesman-Review colleague, now is a reporter for Bloomberg News in London. As a warmup to the 2012 Summer Olympics, he wrote a story about one of the greatest distance runners in track and field history: Roger Bannister, the man who first broke the four-minute mile. Read it here.

Below: Bannister narrates his historic race.

There's just something about Minor League ball. Maybe I'm romanticizing the whole thing, but to me it seems like those guys are out on the field for the love of the game, and I love that. Sure, a lot of them go on to make millions, and that's cool, too. But on Spokane summer nights there's nothing better than a cold beer, a hot dog and a few hours of honest to goodness baseball. Tickets are cheap (they start at $5), you don't have to take out a second mortgage to buy a beverage, and don't even get me started on the awesomeness of Otto.

This Friday (that's June 15 for those of you keeping track at home) the Spokane Indians take the field against Vancouver in their Opening Day game! Yay! And, if you don't have anything better to do, plan to stay after the game for the fireworks extravaganza! BOOM!

Click here for the game schedule.

Click here for the team's promo schedule … $1 Family Feast Night, anyone???

And click here to buy tickets.