November 26th, 2016 By The Farm

A few weeks ago, YHC agreed that now is a better time than ever to train for and (hopefully) complete what might be my first and only full marathon. Once the goal was set, the training plan was created, revised, and revised, and revised again…mainly thanks to our resident sage pax/respect/running machine @Brutus. We are now starting our Saturday runs at 5am vs. the usual 5:30am start time to get a few miles behind us before scooping up the 5:30am runners. Apparently there are some “interesting” characters lurking about at 5am. I’m not talking about just @Funky Bunch…we’ve known about him for years. As YHC pulled into the parking lot on time around 4:57am, I noticed @Dingo having a conversation with a man I’ve never seen before. I believe he was wearing shorts, a punisher t-shirt, and had numerous face and neck tattoos. I thought to myself, that’s cool! F3 is open to all men. Not wanting to interrupt @Dingo’s EH, I stood back and listened. The topics ranged from, “do you guys attend this church” to “yeah, well I’ve done a few Spartans!” after @Dingo mentioned the first F of F3. When @Dingo mentioned he’d done a trifecta this year (@Jelly would’ve been proud), the conversation took a turn. I couldn’t understand what the guy was saying because it was simply unintelligible. Then he walked off. I learned from @Astro Van that this “gentleman” appeared from the woods shortly before the rest of us arrived. Weird. More on him later.

YHC is the smallest in the group. Luckily I had seven bodyguards to accompany me for all seven miles. After grabbing our keys out of fear that our cars might not be there when we get back, we set out for our first three miles. See below:

http://footpathapp.com/routes/f1468135cfbf48b8a8128813e91e77ea

We arrived to our cars still being in the parking lot and no additional men for the four mile route. Success!

YHC has been accused in the past for planning ‘boring’ routes so I thought I would mix it up for the four mile option. However, my goal this morning was to maintain close to marathon pace (sorry @Brutus) and I knew there might be a few men running like rabbits this morning. So, I printed off a few weinkes for the pax! Some men were running so fast that they still missed a turn or two (#respect). See the four mile route below:

http://footpathapp.com/routes/4a92dd38faa14094aa44409eea4e817a

As we set out on this route, we come across two of the BGR ladies who warn us about a strange gentleman ahead that was friendly at first but then antagonized them to the point that they had to cut their route short and turn around. Turns out it was our friend from earlier. Great! We eventually ran past him as he said more things that didn’t make sense, finished our cruise with not much of a six, and logged between 7-8 miles. As we wrapped up, we saw three more ladies heading in his direction and warned them. YHC thinks the face tattoo description was enough to convince them not to venture out that way.

Moleskin:

1) Good work to everyone this morning!
2) @Astro Van keeps saying he’s not running a marathon in March. I can’t wait to be there when he realizes he really is.
3) @Town and Country is fast and also nice to hang back with the ‘older guys.’
4)…but not the oldest guys, who were WAY ahead of the rest of us. Great work and example for what many of us aspire to be at that age!
5) @Funky runs faster when he’s angry…and his digestive tract defies nature according to @Brutus.
6) I think @Dingo finally admitted that my watch was right and his was wrong this morning. It only took a few years.
7) I’m thankful for each of you guys that push me to get out of bed and be an all around better man.
8) Finally, I am thankful that we are out there first thing in the morning when many people aren’t. That we would’ve been close by had our ‘friend’ from this morning been violent and that we were able to warn a few ladies heading down in his direction. And that the BGR ladies gave us a heads up. There’s this unspoken camaraderie with runners that I’ve grown to love as I’ve started to run more.

Announcements:
Christmas Party one week from today (12/3)! Sign up!

Have a good day men!

Davis Lake, The Precinct, Tradition

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