We all know a relay race. Now imagine a relay race in costume. With a mandatory hot dog and beer at the end of each leg. If that’s something beyond your wildest dreams, you won’t have to imagine it for much longer. Returning on October 18th for its nineteenth year, the Wild Colonial Tavern will be hosting its annual Grog & Dog Jog.
Each year, Maurice Collins, the owner of the Wild Colonial, and Brien Lang, father of the Grog, organize Providence’s favorite relay race. Amounting to just under a mile’s run, contestants start at the bar, run down South Water Street, across the Pedestrian Bridge, through District Park, and cross the Crawford Street Bridge to end back at the bar, where they have to eat a hot dog and finish a pint of beer before their teammate can run their leg.
Lang, an avid runner, credits the early ideas for the Grog to a race he used to run, The Big Man Run. Everyone who entered the Big Man had to weigh over 180 pounds, and there were three mandatory bar stops along the course. Lang was inspired enough by the tongue-in-cheek nature of the race, as well as the sense of community, that eventually the Grog & Dog Jog was born…