1 man showed up for Boxtrot this morning.
The PAX: Hollywood (Q)
The Thang:
4 miles…supposed to be just under a 10/min/mile pace. It was not…but we’ll get to that.
I rolled up to the start point at 5:27AM…I knew that XBox is on the IR, and also I was pretty sure that DryDock was a solo dad this week. So who else was going to show? 5:30AM…just me…was I really going to do this? Sure. Why the hell not?
Mile 1 – Attempting to set the pace which we normally run. It’s hard cause I don’t have a fancy smart watch. My watch I bought off a spinning rack at Fred Meyer a couple years ago. It’ll have to do this morning. My footfalls are loud, not covered up by mumblechatter. I have the opening horns from Van Morrison’s “Real Real Gone” stuck in my head.
Mile 2 – Feeling good. The song’s still there. The trail is practically empty, and the morning is beautiful. I passed a set of millennials, maybe a couple? They were running with headphones in. Not sure if I was jealous of that, or glad to be running in silence.
Mile 3 – Oh shit. I just hit the turn around point at 5:45AM. This is bad. Real bad. “Real Real Bad” there are those horns again. All this time I’ve been blaming DryDock for letting the pace creep up. But I just ran the first two miles at a no BS 7:30/min/mile. Figuring out a way to still blame DryDock…standby. In the silence though, I did figure out a critical story point for a creative project I’ve been working on. This problem has been plaguing me for the last few weeks, and it was a bit of an epiphany this morning. All by myself.
Mile 4 – The last mile of our run…the visibility really opens up. The trail is straight and open, you can see a long way. That makes it tough when you’re on your own. I focusing now on the pain in my legs, and the fact that I know I’m running faster than we normally allow, but I’m also pushing myself to finish at that pace.
Finish Line – Yikes. Finished at 6:01…by my math that’s 4 miles in 31 minutes, or about 7:45/min/mile. Whoops. DryDock really messed up the pace this morning. I’m going to have a stern talk with him when I see him next.
General thoughts – Working out by yourself is no where near as enjoyable. F3 has made me more sociable whilst working out. I said “hello” to everyone that I passed. 80% did not really respond, or did at a minimal level.
I had a great morning…just wish other guys had been there to share it.
